Rescue
The world turned red, and it felt like time stopped. The loud rustling of the wind faded away, subjugated by a growl that got stronger with each second. The growl was so strong that the air and the ground seemed to vibrate with it and if filled the ears of the little wolfess.

The shadow of the hyena vanished in front of her and something wet and sticky hit her head, shoulder and back. Imyasel stood there with shaking legs, blinking into the light, and trying to find out what happened.

A shadow, much bigger than the hyena, came into her vision and the growl got even stronger, when it moved quickly back and forth while the little bundle of fur was not able to follow it with her eyes.

A fearful whimper of another hyena was audible under the growl and shortly after a gargling scream. The rumbling of the growl became so loud, that it hurt in the ears of the little wolfess, and she pressed her eyes shut as if this would help her to close her ears as well.

Everything was over within a few seconds, but for the exhausted pup all seemed like an eternity. Her ears started to hurt from the sudden silence that grew around her when the growl stopped from one second to the next.

The wind, now slowly starting the whistling again, sounded far away and like a whisper. Imyasel opened her eyes and blinked a few times. The big shadow came closer to her. She saw a big head, much bigger than that of a hyena, and red eyes that pierced through her and sparkled like glimmering ember.

Then her senses faded. The exhaustion caught up to the little body and the last of her reserves, that she had collected for her last fight, left her body. She barely felt it when her legs collapsed, and her body hit the ground. Her vision went blurry, and darkness spread around her.

The shadow in front of her grew and filled her vision, erasing the light of the sun, erasing everything but the red eyes that followed her into the darkness and made her shiver from their constant and merciless watch while she lifted from the ground and floated through the darkness.


The silent mumbling of water filled her ears when Imyasel slowly woke up. The pain, a constant companion to her for weeks, burned on her skin and in her lungs. Like so many times before, when she woke up in the evening, she felt a but refreshed but at the same time a very deep exhaustion.

Something glided over her face. It was soft and wet and ran a few times more over her matted, her still closed eyes, her ears, and her nose. Where her skin had ripped, especially at her nose, she felt the pain burn stronger when the dry leather soaked up the moisture.

Imyasel groaned and her nose trembled. She could smell the water and there was something else under it. Blood!

With shivering eyelids, she opened her eyes and her vision started blurry but slowly cleared up. It was already dark around her and she saw the shadows of the trees in the bright moonlight that reflected from a small river just a few steps away.

Without wondering how she got there, she crawled her way towards the water with wobbling legs, sliding over the ground on her belly because her legs would not support her to walk. She ignored the big shadow standing next to her, that followed her weak movements and stood guard while the girl crawled paw after paw towards the water.

Finally, her nose dipped into the water. The cold water burned strongly on her already hurting nose but at the same time it numbed the pain. She took a few breaths through her muzzle before she found enough strength to lift her nose out of the water and dip her yaw into it to drink.

At first, she let the water run into her muzzle and gulped carefully, feeling the burning cold feeling travel through her gullet into her stomach, but with the energy slowly filling her body together with the cold water, her tongue started to move and shovel the water down faster, taking one gulp, then a second and a third.

She just wanted to continue drinking. She had been thirsty for so long, only finding small water sources in the last days, and now she could drink as much as she wanted, but just when she felt her stomach fill, she felt something grip her in the neck and pull her back.

She floated for a short time and then her paws hit the ground again, holding her weight trembling. The river was a few steps away again and she was about to walk towards it again when the smell of blood got caught in her nose again.

She lowered the nose and her eyes, that got clearer with every second, saw small scraps of meet lay just in front of her. Without thinking, she licked at the first piece and tasted the rich flavor of the meat. She had tasted this before. This was the meat of a rabbit, or at least Imyasel thought it was, because she did not have any meat for such a long time that she thought she forgot how it tasted.

Carefully she gripped the mean with her teeth and began to chew on it. Her jaw started to hurt strongly, and she whimpered from the growing pain, but she continued to chew with very small movements.

Even though she had chewed on bark and even branches, her yaw was rather weak and the spongy flesh that required her to chew each fiber, strained the muscles in her jaw that were rarely used in the last weeks.

The taste of flesh increased in her muzzle and the juice in her muzzle, when her saliva mixed with the scraps of flesh, tasted wonderful for the little furball. She gulped down the juice and chew on the meat for a long time, until her muzzle was empty.

She took the second scrap on the ground and repeated the same thing like with the first. Even though her jaw still hurt, the chewing got faster and the little wolfess ate the second scrap and then the third and the fourth, until her belly felt full and all the scraps of meat in front of her were gone.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall on the ground, drifting off to sleep again. Her body still felt exhausted, but she noticed, while all her senses dulled again, that her body stopped to shiver, and a warmth spread from her inside to all her limbs.

For the first time in a long time, she felt full and satisfied. Her stomach was not growling and the warmth that spread inside her, filling her exhausted body and burn under her skin, reminded her of the warmth of her mother.

She fell asleep before the big shadow lay down next to her and pushed warm fur into the back of the little girl, warming it and shielding it against the cold wind.


The next few times Imyasel woke up it sometimes was day and sometimes was night, but the circle repeated itself. She drank a bit of water until something pulled her away from the riverbank and placed her right in front of some small pieces of meat, that got more every time.

Imyasel did not know how many days passed, but her body regained energy and when it was strong enough to stand up without her legs shivering, and when her stomach did not demand her to drink and eat directly, she scanned her surrounding for the first time.

The girl winced when she saw a big shadow right next to her right side. It was the shadow that she had seen with the hyenas, with the red eyes. After looking at the shadow for a few minutes, her eyes slowly getting used to the darkness and focusing on the eyes, she noticed that the eyes were only reflecting the moonlight that reflected from the river and that it was the eyes of a wolf.

She realized that the shadow was a big black wolf, nearly double the size of her father and with a big head that looked even bigger because of the thick and long black fur.

Imyasel rustled a few times, trying to speak, until finally she could form words out of her whimpers.
“Hello?” she felt insecure, even though she knew by instinct that this big wolf must have saved her from the hyenas and that he, she could smell that it was a male wolf, also had been the one who fed her.

“I… I’m Imyasel…” her voice was very soft and faded in the wind. She had regained a bit of energy, but her throat still hurt, and she could not do more than whisper.
“Thank you… for… saving… me…” she lowered her gaze, feeling insecure and a bit frightened by the long gaze of the older wolf.

He only looked at her without responding. She saw by the twitching of his ears, that he heard her, but he did not move yet.

“Who… are… are you?” she asked and looked up again, wincing when she saw that the big wolf lowered his head towards hers. She closed her eyes but only felt a tongue wash over her face and head. When it left her fur, she heard a loud growling voice, even though it sounded more silent that the last growl she heard before. “Demon!”

The wolf only said this word and then the growling, that had Imyasel flinch, faded. She looked up to the wolf, but he had turned his head to something in front of him. She saw him rip apart a mouse and put some scraps of meet next to Imyasel.

She began to eat, while she felt the gaze of the wolf in her neck the whole time. Her jaw hurt much less, and she was able to chew normally now. After eating another mouse, that her new companion filleted for her, she moved to the river to drink.

The wolf left her alone for a longer time now, but in the middle of her drink he picked her up by her nap and put her back a few steps away from the river. When Imyasel tried to scuttle to the river again, because she still felt a bit thirsty, he picked her up before she reached the water and put her down a bit further away.

She understood that he did not want her to drink so much. Even though the girl did not understand the reason, she realized that she could not manage to get to the river while he stood watch and so she ate a third mouse, that he ripped apart for her, and then wanted to sleep again, but he gripped her by the nap just before she could lay down and carried her into a small bush nearby, before he let her lay down and close her eyes.
Before she went back to sleep, she heard the silent steps of the wolf prowl away from her.


It was still dark when she woke up again and her new companion was already with her. She felt his warm body next to her, warming her back. When she opened her eyes, she saw his head tower over her, looking around and scanning the surroundings.

Imyasel felt nature call and got up on her paws. She noticed that it was much easier for her now to get up and move around. She felt the gleaming eyes in her back, but the big wolf did not stop her when she chose a bush, where she was a bit out of sight of Demon, to relieve herself.

Afterwards she followed the sound of the water to get a drink. She only drank a few gulps, feeling much less dried up now, and then returned to the bush, where the wolf still waited for her and followed every of her actions.

Between his forepaws she saw a few scraps of meat and from the blood she saw at his fangs she knew that he left it for her. Carefully, with looking up to the bigger wolf, she approached him, and her steps got slower the closer she came to him until she nearly stopped and only took very small steps to reach the meat.

It was as juicy as before. She saw the rest of a bunny next to the wolf, showing what kind of meal he served her this time and while looking up to the guarding eyes she ate all the scraps. Her belly even bulged out a bit from the rich nourishment and with a happy sigh, she scuttled around his paws and towards his belly.

She winced every time her gaze went up and her silver eyes met his red orbs. She slowly got used to the red reflection in his eyes, but it still scared her a bit and made her feel insecure.
She rolled into a ball and snuggled against his belly, feeling the warm body of the bigger wolf, and sighing again. Even though she still was a bit afraid of this strange wolf, snuggling up with him made her feel secure from any other predators or dangers.

Her throat recovered a bit during her sleep, and she emitted a low and happy growl when she closed her eyes and pushed her head into the pitch-black fur of the older creature. She took in the strong scent of the other wolf and slowly got used to it. With smile on her muzzle, concealed by the fur around her, she drifted off to sleep again.

It took a few more days for Imyasel to regain all her energy and for the shivering in her legs to vanish completely. She had never thought that she would have a full belly again or that she would ever regain her strength.

Hunger, pain, and the freezing wind had been her company for weeks, but now she woke up feeling warm, the pain fading away more and more with each sleep and her stomach did not growl all the time and she satisfied her thirst and hunger with the water of the river and the meat that Demon brought her.

She even started to eat the meat directly from the animal, mostly mice or rabbits, once he brought a weasel, saving the big wolf to rip the meat apart for her. The jaw did not hurt anymore and Imyasel even started to play a bit with the remains of the prey after eating, which was cut off with a thundering growl from the bigger wolf, who apparently did not like her to play with the food.

On the third night, the sun was just beginning to set when Imyasel woke up, Demon did not lay down after she finished her meal. He grabbed the rest of the mice, and she heard the bones crack under his strong bite when he chews them and gulped down the rest that Imyasel left.

He took a few slow steps uphill and then turned around to look at Imyasel. The pup needed a few minutes to realize that he waited for her to close the gap and follow him. She had tried to catch her own tail to let off a bit of the excess energy that resting for two days and nights and a big meal stored within her.

She scampered the few meters to the big black wolf, that in the daylight looked less intimidating than in the dark but still huge and impressive, and when he saw that she followed him, he slowly began to continue his climb.

Demon always stayed a few meters shy from the water but when the darkness settled around them, Imyasel noticed that they followed the river upstream. The big wolf did not utter a word. Actually, she had not heard him say anything but his name once at the beginning.

His steps were silent and when Imyasel idled a bit and he got three meters away, she barely could hear his paws anymore and she hurried to follow him.

The little gray timber-wolfess wondered where they were going. She had asked it carefully when they stopped to take a drink and follow the natures call, but Demon just had looked at her with his red eyes and she felt as if he gazed into her soul. Then he turned his head and continued the walk, without answering.

The gaze of the wolf did not follow her everywhere anymore. The only indicator for her that he took note of her were his ears that turned to all directions. One ear always was directed to her.
The hesitation in his steps, when he waited for her at the beginning, went away and when she idled for a moment, she had to run after him right away, because he did not stop anymore for anything but drinking, until the moon vanished behind some clouds and the wood around them became nearly as black as Demon.

The black wolf stopped at a small burrow that had a faint scent of an animal that Imyasel never smelled before. Demon entered the burrow first, widening the entrance a bit with his paws. He only made enough space at the entrance for both and then he left her inside this small burrow entrance, rolled into a furry ball in a corner, and left.

Imyasel nearly cried out in surprise when a dead rabbit landed next to her. She heard Demon enter the burrow and the cold wind, that had ruffled her fur, stopped, which told her that the bigger wolf now blocked the entrance. She saw a few rays of the morning sun before the black body blocked the entire entrance and turned the burrow into darkness.

She heard him eat and realized that he had a second prey. She ate the bunny and moved a bit closer to the black wolf afterwards to cuddle up with him. He did not react and let her snuggle up with his back. She could not see his head, but Imyasel was sure that he was looking out of the burrow, based on his positioning.

“Thank you…” she whispered, realizing that she never thanked him. She did not know if he had heard her or not. At least he did not react to her voice. Soon after, she fell asleep, a bit exhausted still from the first full night on her paws after her recovery but with a full stomach and feeling warm and secure.