Hunting Trip

Rising early in the morning, just after the sun started to break over the horizon slowly turning the dark night into day, Suriel woke up the wolves for breakfast. Skoll was being grumpy because he never liked the idea of waking up this early. "Just let me sleep a little longer, we have plenty of time to go out hunting."

Luna rolls her eyes at his response. "Stop being so lazy, do you remember how long it took us to find a deer to kill last time?" 

Skoll rolled over onto his back and sat up. "Alright fine, but don't blame me if I'm falling asleep for most of the day." 

Feeling satisfied by convincing Skoll to get out of bed, she promptly walked into the kitchen. Feeling hungry, Fenrir followed her close behind. Suriel had already laid out the meal for them in advance, like most days their meals comprised of vegetables grown in one of Suriel's gardens as a side dish. For the main repast was salt-cured meat, which most humans ate since the food would last a long time before perishing.

After wolfing down their breakfast, Fenrir and Luna both grabbed their makeshift hunting bows although low in quality it still did the job. After learning how to use bows from Suriel a few years back, they have become rather proficient at using them. 

Skoll is the last one to grab his and still looks half asleep. "Next time I should go to bed sooner so I won't be as tired."

"Luna and I are fine, and we went to bed after you did." Fenrir says as he is inspecting his bow for imperfections.

"Alright, are all of you ready? Suriel says to them with a smile. " Before you head out, just remember that Fenrir is in charge of the two of you and you need to listen to him. And remember Fenrir, if you sense any trouble you need to get them home as quickly as possible."

"Yeah, I know, don't worry everything will be fine." Fenrir says annoyed by her having been told this many times. 

After saying their final goodbyes, the three wolves set off into the forest to hunt for food. Hunting is relatively easy for them, their sense of smell is in par with that of a regular wolf, on top of that their reflexes are better than most humans. In fact, their physical fitness is already on par with a human adult, which is impressive considering they are only ten years old. 

Fenrir is leading the group into the woods, followed by Luna, and Skoll lagging behind due to his fatigue. Fenrir and Luna stop in their tracks to let Skoll catch up to them. "Skoll, you need to keep up with us even if you are tired. We can't leave you behind, and we can't afford to waste time waiting for you." Fenrir scolds him. 

"I just need to rest for a while. I'm still tired from not getting enough sleep." 

"Fenrir, we could always find a runway that the deer use and wait for one to come through. It would give Skoll time to rest, and we won't be wasting time." Luna suggests. 

Fenrir thinks about it for a moment. "Alright, but we need to find a trail that they use with the wind blowing the same way, that way we can smell them approaching and ready ourselves as they close in." They continue walking for ten or so minutes before Fenrir stops and finds a spot that he is looking for. He inspects the trail and notices some deer tracks along the path. "These tracks are fresh, they seem to use this path often, it might be a good place to wait for one to come through."

"Finally I can take a break, wake me up when you smell one coming." Skoll says as he sits down and leans against a tree before falling asleep. 

Fenrir and Luna sit down facing towards the wind waiting patiently and focusing on the aroma in the air for their prey to arrive.

Luna tries to strike up a conversation to ease the tension while they wait. "Fenrir, you need to relax a bit more, you always seem tense."

"It's just the way I am. I like taking things seriously now that we are approaching adulthood. When we go out on our own we need to be on our toes in case there is danger." 

"That's no way to live, you need to enjoy life while you can." Luna pauses for a moment to think what to say next. "Life is meant to be lived to the fullest, you should do whatever you want that makes you happy."

Fenrir looks over and smiles at her. "I am happy as long as you, Skoll, and Mother are safe. All I want in life is to make sure that the ones I care about are safe from danger."

"Isn't there anything else that you want? We won't be traveling together for the rest of our lives. You should think about what you want when we go our separate ways."

"Yeah I know, but I won't concern myself with that right now. We still have a few years before we set out into the world."

Luna didn't know how to respond. She was content knowing that Fenrir would think more about what he wanted for himself later on in life. Knowing that she prioritized focusing on the task ahead. 

Half an hour had passed and there was no sign of any deer. Fenrir thought it was time to keep going, and he knew that following the direction that the breeze was blowing that they would eventually smell the scent of a deer. He got up and walked over to Skoll nudging him on the shoulder to wake him up. "It's time to get going, we can't waste any more time waiting here."

"Yeah I'm up, I think think that short nap helped. I might be able to keep up with you guys now."

"Let's hope so. We don't have time to wait for you to catch up again. We have a lot of daylight left but who knows how long it will take before we come across a deer." Fenrir says.

They continue moving forward in the direction away from the village to avoid human contact, while also towards the direction the wind is blowing from. 

Twenty minutes pass by when they encounter a stream. It is fairly large, too wide to jump across, however, it is shallow and full of large rocks that you could use to get to the other side. They have encountered this stream before on previous hunting trips but have never gone past it. 

"This is as far as we go. Any further and we risk not making it back in time before dark." Fenrir says. Traversing this stream would make it almost impossible to drag their prey across it when they return home. Not to mention the long journey they have to get back, dragging a deer back home this far out is exhausting and would take over an hour. "We will backtrack about a quarter-mile back, and walk north the opposite the way the stream is flowing." 

"I guess I'm up for it." Skoll says as he sighs.

After retracing their footsteps and heading north, they encounter another set of tracks, Fenrir bends down and inspects it. "These look fresh just like the last set of tracks, and they are heading east towards the stream." He looks back at Luna and Skoll. "We need to hurry if we want to catch up to it before it decides to cross the stream." 

Skoll's energy seems to be rejuvenated as he looks eager to continue. "Well, it's about time we saw another set of tracks. If it took any longer I might have fallen asleep out of boredom."

"Looks like someone is finally awake." Luna looks at him with a grin. "Seems like the excitement of getting close to our prey has got your adrenaline pumping." 

"You bet, looking and waiting to find deer is boring, chasing one down is the exciting part."

Fenrir tries to keep them quiet. "Both of you need to keep your voices down. Even if we can't smell its scent from here we don't want to scare it away with all this noise. We need to catch up to it but we have to be quiet as we chase it down."

Skoll lowers his tone of voice to almost a whisper. "Sorry, I just got a little excited." 

Fenrir stands up and leads them forwards in the direction the tracks are headed. He walks quietly and carefully through the woods, avoiding stepping on sticks and dried leaves.