Chapter 3. The First Day of her New Life

Heero had retreated to the bedroom at the end of the long hall upstairs. It was the one he had used before the curse, when he was still human, but since then he was usually content to just hunker down before the great fireplace in his wolf form. He hardly ever took his human form anymore; He only did it once in a while, when he felt like going to that tavern for some brew and to hear some gossip from the human world. Like last night.

Getting back into that bed felt strange, especially when he could smell that girl's scent in it. And one pillow was slightly damp. She had been crying, he realized.

He knew he needed to try to get some rest. But Heero, still riled up from their argument hours ago, was unable to sleep. Restless and needing to run, he decided that it would be a good idea to go out on a hunt. It was his normal mealtime anyways, and if he could kill that doe or something larger like that, then they would both have enough for a satisfying feast today. After all, he realized, he was that girl's sole provider of food now that he had expressly forbidden her to leave of her own accord. And at any rate, there was no way that she could make the one-day walk to the nearest town while moving at a human's rate. He had no servants living with him – a fact that she had already discovered yesterday – to make the trip for them or even to cook the game that he took down. When he took on his wolf form, he had no need for cooking; It was far more enjoyable to rip the raw meat from his still-warm kill and to feel the hot blood stain his muzzle.

In the pre-dawn minutes, as the sky was taking on an ashen hue again, Heero changed into his wolf form and slipped silently out of his house. There was a gentle flurry going today.

As a wolf, all of his senses were sharpened many times over. The moment he set foot outside, his nose detected the smell of that girl faintly lingering in the snow. She really had left the house! He realized. That meant she was somewhere out there, and suddenly he was compelled by the obligation to find her. He had promised the old man who had seen through him; and even if he hadn't, the one shred of humanity left within him would not allow him to abandon a person whom he had the power to save.

He took a few seconds to howl into the air, calling on his subjects for help in the search, and then he was off.

The tracking was proving difficult. She must have passed through here hours ago. And the newly fallen snow covered up her footprints and diluted the scent trail. He knew he didn't have much time. It was impossible for a strong human to survive for very long in this weather, and she did not look like a sturdy one at all. He had to find her soon.

Occasionally, he would lose the faintly lingering scent completely, but as a whole it was becoming stronger and stronger. And two wolves that were in the area and heard his command joined him along the way. Trudging on even when there was no clear direction, they followed the trail at a brisk pace for many minutes before they finally found her.

The girl was lying curled up on her side in the snow, which was already starting to pile up on her. Was he too late? Heero bounded to her side to look at her face. It was completely colorless, he saw, except for her lips, which were an alarming shade of blue. He lowered his nose to her face and felt the smallest breath escaping from those parted blue lips. Immediately, he knew that there was still time, but only if he acted now.

He lay down beside her, as close to her body as he could, and tried to maneuver his head under her arm. The other two wolves pushed from the other side, and the three of them, by working together, managed to roll her onto Heero's back.

And then they ran back to the mansion, one on either side to keep her from slipping off. At the door Heero gave them a quick nod of thanks before they left, before he went to care for her alone.

He carried her into the sitting room and set her down on the fur in front of the fire, making sure to straighten her arms and legs to promote circulation. He pulled off her shoes again, though it was much more difficult this time since he didn't have the use of his hands, and settled himself down onto her feet to fight off frostbite and speed up their warming. With her toes buried in the soft, hot fur of his belly, his body was still long enough to cover her legs, and his head just reached her hips. Settling himself to stay in that position for a few minutes, he put his head down to rest on her hips. More contact meant more heat for her. But immediately he found that, again, her scent was beneath him and around him, warm and comforting and inviting and made even more intense by the sensitivity of his wolf's nose. The scent of woman.

He pushed that thought out of his head. He was here to give her his warmth.

Peering up at her without lifting his head, he saw from her rhythmically rising chest that she was slowly beginning to take deeper, stronger breaths as the warmth from the fire and his body enveloped her.

Many minutes later and finally satisfied that she was recovering well, he remembered his original plan of going hunting that morning. Now it had been two whole days since she had last eaten, and if she were to make the rest of her recovery a speedy one, she had to have something to eat the moment she woke up. He was still uneasy at the idea of leaving her alone while she was still so very fragile, but he had to do this for her. He got up from her legs and went on his hunt, determined to make it back before she would even begin to stir again.

Twenty minutes later he was back, a dead hare in his teeth. It was the only thing he could find that wouldn't take too long to catch, kill, and bring back, not to mention clean and cook. The girl was no wolf, and she couldn't eat raw meat, so Heero knew that he would have to find a way to get this hare cooked for her. He had been thinking about how to do it all the way home, as the hare hung limp and bleeding from his jaws, and he thought he had an idea now.

He left the hare just outside the door and went inside. First he poked his head into the room to check on the girl, who was still lying still. Then, he padded into the kitchen and curled his lips in wolfish disgust at the different dusty pots until he saw one that he thought was a good size for what he had in mind. He picked it up with his teeth, along with a suitable spoon, and brought them outside to where the dead hare was waiting. Here, he set the pot down, put the spoon in, and began to work.

First things first, this pot and spoon need washing. He bit a mouthful of snow and held it in his mouth until it melted. He opened his mouth over the pot and the icy water fell into the pot. Then he picked it up with his teeth and swirled the water around as well as he could before setting it down again and tipped it over with his paw to let out the dusty water. He did this two more times, until he was satisfied that it was clean.

Now for you, he thought as he turned to the hare. It was messy work, since he only had his teeth and claws. Moreover, he never had to do this before, so it wasn't as if he had any experience. But he managed to bite off the head and skin the animal, and even to clean out its organs. He placed the hare, now finally fit for cooking, into the washed pot.

He started to bring the pot inside, when an idea came unexpectedly to him. He looked around him, and luckily found some edible plants nearby, next to the house where the warmth from the fireplace seeped out and kept a small strip of dirt free of snow. These he ripped of just above the roots, and then they, too, were dropped into the pot.

Then he proceeded to dump snow into the pot. Today he was making stew.

Finally, he carried his pot of herb and hare and snow into the house, all the while feeling rather proud of his own resourcefulness and handiwork. He singed his nose a little bit when he put the pot in the fire on the wooden logs, but he didn't mind. He just moved so that he was on the other side of the girl, where the fire couldn't warm her, and lay down. Color had returned to her cheeks again, and it looked like she was sleeping now. Finally, with everything in place, he allowed himself to lay his head on his paws and rest.

Heero only realized he had dozed off when he was woken by the feeling of fingers in his fur. The girl was still asleep, but she had moved onto her side so that her back now faced the fire. An arm reached over to him, and its fingers alternately tangled and smoothed out a small clump of fur where his neck met his shoulders.

He had never had his fur stroked before. What an odd but not unpleasant sensation! He closed his eyes again, so that he could concentrate on the feeling. He could come to enjoy this, he decided.

Suddenly, the fingers stopped their soothing motions in his fur.

Just as he was about to open his eyes to see why they had stopped, he heard a strangled scream beside him. On instinct, he jumped up into a defensive stance, ears pricked forward and alert for any sign of danger.

Immediately, though, he realized what had happened. The girl had just woken up to find a very large wolf next to her, and reacted as any other human – any other human who had been attacked by wolves not two days ago – would have.

He turned around and found her hiding behind an armchair across the room. She looked at him over its padded back, fear clearly showing in her eyes and in the way her fingers gripped the fabric. He heard her inhale sharply when he made eye contact with her, and knew that she was planning the best way to run from the room without being caught and killed.

Heero decided to show her that he wasn't going to hurt her in the only way he knew how. He sat down on his haunches, and then he lowered himself completely so that even his head was on the ground. And he just looked at her, trying to communicate to her with his eyes.

The girl stayed behind the chair for many minutes and trembled while the wolf in front of her stayed still, listening to her rapid, shallow, frantic breathing. If it had wanted to attack her, it would have done so by now, she told herself. But what was a wild animal doing in that man's house? And such a large one at that. Could this wolf be a pet of that man, Heero?

Gingerly, she stepped out from behind the chair, and took a few uncertain steps forward. She still looked like she was ready to bolt at the smallest movement from him, so Heero made sure to stay absolutely still. No flicking of the ears, no twitching of the tail, and definitely no licking of the muzzle.

Slowly, from her posture and her breathing, he could sense her fear leaving her. Now it was time to act, but he must not make the wrong movement. The next thing he did would be crucial for building or breaking her trust.

He broke their eye contact so that she would not think he was about to come after her. He lowered his eyes to a random point on the fur rug beneath him and slowly sat back up. Immediately, she tensed again; but she did not run behind the chair.

Then, carefully, he looked at her again. He heard her intake of breath, but she stayed where she was. Not bad, there is some courage in her.

He turned his head to point at the fire, and then he looked back at her, but she did not follow his indication. Either she hadn't caught on, or she had but just refused to take her eyes off of him.

He reminded himself to be patient with the human girl, and tried again. This time, he stood up on all fours, though he made sure to turn his body so that he wasn't facing her. He walked over to the fire and nodded at it, pointing to the pot with his nose. Then he walked a few paces away from it, so that he was back against the sofa, and sat down again, curling his tail so that it wrapped around his front paws. It was a habit of his.

With the wolf itself putting some distance between them, Relena was now relatively certain that it wasn't interested in her for its dinner. She decided it would be safe to take her eyes off of it, and looked at the fire where it had seemed to be "pointing."

She was surprised to find a pot of stew boiling on the logs, and it was then that she realized that the smell of cooking was all throughout the room. She also realized how weak and how hungry she really was. Suddenly, right at that moment, the single most important thing in that room was the food, not the wolf.

In order to be able to eat the stew, she needed to get it off of the fire first. She looked around for something which would allow her to handle the hot metal but found nothing. Then she looked like she had an idea. She looked down at her skirt, then over at the wolf with an almost sheepish expression on her face.

"Wait, what am I doing," she whispered to herself, "It's not like that wolf over there can understand what is and isn't 'ladylike'." With that, she bunched up as much of her skirt as she could in her hands and used it as insulation to grab the pot from the fire.

With the pot now free from the fire and safely on the ground, ready to be eaten from, she was rather proud of her own resourcefulness. She was about to start eating when she heard the wolf panting a distance to her side. She looked over at it, and saw that it was staring right at her with its mouth open and his tongue hanging out as it panted. It was almost as if it were laughing at her.

By now, she was sure that she felt no threat from it, so she just cocked an eyebrow at it suspiciously. "Strange wolf… must be his pet," she thought out loud. In response, the wolf got up again and walked to the side of the fireplace, where a spoon was lying on the ground. He pushed it over to her with his nose, since he was pretty sure she didn't want to use a spoon covered with saliva, and then moved a respectful distance away again.

Relena's eyes lit up at the spoon that the wolf brought over. It looked clean, she thought as she picked it up, but she wiped it on a corner of her skirt for good measure.

Then she looked at the wolf a short distance away, back to the stew in front of her, then back to the wolf again.

Heero watched from his seat next to the sofa as the girl picked up the pot again with her skirt between her hand and the metal, and was struck again with amusement. Of her own accord, she moved nearer until she was close enough to touch him if she reached out, but she was still was sure to leave some space between them. Then she sat down, leaning her back against the sofa behind them.

She lifted out the hare with the spoon and broke off both of its muscular hind legs. She held them out to him on her hand, clearly offering him part of her meal even though she was so hungry herself.

"Here, Wolf," she said, "You must be that man's pet, and you don't look like you want to eat me, so I'll trust you." She looked into his eyes and frowned a little. "I know you don't understand me, but you look hungry. I don't know how this got here, but it smells quite good, so I want you to have some. Go ahead, take it."

Heero was surprised. She was offering half of her already modest meal to him, even though she must have been famished herself. But he had to admit, he was hungry too; He had also missed his meal this morning.

She looked like she could use all the food she could get, but he could not bring himself to refuse her kindness. Tonight, he decided, he would hunt her something big and filling. He seemed to nod a little, and carefully took the small chunks of meat from her hand. He watched her face as he did, and saw her hold her breath as his sharp teeth came close to her hand, but she did not shrink from him. When he had taken both pieces of meat, he gently licked her hand in gratitude, sweeping his tongue across her palm and pressing it between her fingers to lick up the juices.

She smiled at that, and then she turned to her own food.

They ate together, sitting side by side, on the bear's fur rug in front of the roaring fire.