The Little Prince and The Dragon

4. Throwing Stones

It was the day after the full moon when Taehyung saw on the news: 14 year old girl found dead this morning and officials have confirmed that it was a wolf that attacked her. Locals are tired of the constant threat of the wolves and with the wolf population increasing, citizens are afraid that more incidents like this will occur. A hunt has been authorized to thin out the population and will commence at 5pm today. We advise citizens to stay out of the woods until further notice.

He could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he made his way out of the lounge and out through the back door– shit, shit, shit. There had been the restless murmurs of the town recently that had made Taehyung nervous, the people in his town were getting angry and they wanted the wolves gone. An image of the wolves–bloodied, defeated, dead–flashed in his mind and it nearly crippled him. He had to get Jimin and his pack out or hide them until the thinning was done.

Tearing into the woods, Taehyung’s shoes scraping against the rough ground while the sun beat down on him, burning his neck. His entire body was on fire with panic and frustration at the fact that he had no way of contacting Jimin besides his shouts that were probably never going to be loud enough. “Jimin! Jimin!”

After searching for a solid 30 minutes Taehyung was beginning to lose hope, tears pricked the corner of his eyes and his pounding heart threatening to burst from his chest. But just then he saw two wolves running towards him, Jimin’s familiar light brown and grey fur reflecting the sunlight and a white wolf that Jimin had once told him was named Yoongi.

“Took you long enough,” Taehyung groaned and Yoongi growled at his tone. Taehyung raised both his hands as if surrendering before this wolf that had the eyes of a fox tore him to shreds. “Easy, puffball, I’m here to help.”

He turned to Jimin, “There are hunters on their way to thin out the wolf population because of some wolf attacking a little girl.” Taehyung kept the fact that he thought that it must have been a rogue who did it, to himself because honestly he didn’t quite care at the moment. Maybe he would later when his best friend was safe but now it just a factor in the events that were about to unfold. “You and your pack need to go as far a possible or find a place to hide.”

Jimin nodded, his eyes even that of a wolf were still easy to understand–they were determined and when Jimin turned to the white wolf, ears pointed and hackles raised, Taehyung knew they were trying to work out what to do next.

It looked like they chose to run or maybe they were only running to get to the others and then they would hide, Taehyung didn’t know and the not knowing was frustrating him. He decided that he needed to help in some way; he needed to be of some use to Jimin, but how?

Running with them to the den to warn the others, Taehyung felt a bit out of place and most definitely intimidated surrounded by a pack of wolves but he pushed the fear down and tried to focus on formulating a plan to help out. Jimin approached him and nudged him to the direction they’d just come from–he want Taehyung gone, out of the woods, safe.

Taehyung let out a short laugh, “Like hell.”

A growl escaped Jimin and he nudged Taehyung again, harder this time. Figuring that they would only waste time with this argument, Taehyung backed away and said, “Alright, I’ll go, but you better be in one piece the next time I see you, you bastard.” He swore he could see one of Jimin’s tiny smirks curl the wolf’s lips before the wolf turned and barked at the others to get a move on. Taehyung watched the pack disappear into the distance, praying they could get far enough.

He had lied. There was no way he was just going home like some messenger that had only brought the bad news to their attention and then let the soldiers do the rest–if Jimin was a soldier then so was he. Taehyung located what side of the woods the hunters were entering and took his place behind a tree with a thick trunk so he’d stay hidden.