~ Rediscovering Happiness ~

SAPHIRA

By the time Saphira returns to camp, there is a soft blanket of snow coating the ground and gathering in small lumps on the branches of the pines. Most of the girls appear to be carrying out the day as business as usual, but a couple of the younger girls seem to be enjoying the first snowfall of the year. A former mortal girl named Penny and a demigoddess named Olivia, aged eleven and twelve, are cupping up balls of snow and tossing them at each other. The sight makes Saphira smile. She knows she hasn't been the most… social girl in the Hunt, often preferring to be alone rather than interact with her sisters, but it warms her heart to see that despite their recent hardships, at least a few of them still maintain high spirits.

In war, having a good morale is key to warriors fighting at their best. If their spirit is dead, so are they.

Saphira pads her way towards the center of camp, where she finds Chloe working alone in the supply tent. Upon her approach, her friend brightens up and steps outside for an eager hug.

"What took you so long? You were gone for far longer than normal," she says.

Saphira replies as they separate. "I had a hunt and a bit of trouble on the way."

Now, the Apollo girl replaces her smile with a frown. "What sort of trouble?"

"Ran into a couple wolves."

"What?! Are you okay?" Chloe begins to reach out, probably to inspect her for injuries but Saphira assuringly holds her back by her shoulders.

"I'm fine. I killed both, but that doesn't mean there isn't more of them in the region," she says. "I'm going to call a short meeting and explain more later. Right now, I have something for you to take care of."

She unslings her pack and opens it to reveal her haul of venison ribs, as well as two squirrels that she had shot on her way back. With the few girls that remain in camp, this would do well to keep them fed for a couple days.

"Oh, good. We were pretty low again," Chloe says, taking the haul into the tent and sorting the ribs from the squirrels. "This'll keep us for a little while."

"I'll go out again tomorrow morning and try to get another deer," Saphira says.

"Why are there only the ribs in here?"

"I was harvesting the meat when the wolves appeared," she replies quickly, keeping her tone steady. "I didn't want to stay in the area for too long, so I just gathered up the ribs and left."

"Probably the smart thing to do," Chloe agrees. She begins to string each rib onto a smooth, shaven branch in preparation for roasting the meat. If she's roasting it, then that means those ribs will be for tonight's dinner. Meat that isn't eaten the day of its harvest is dried via smoking, so that it doesn't rot and can consumed later. However, in this frigidly cold region, it's not likely that any meat will spoil quickly.

"I'm going to speak with Laura and Amaris about the wolves. We need to figure out how we're going to deal with this and ensure the camp's safety," Saphira explains, gathering her emptied pack.

"Okay. Make sure you come back because I know you haven't eaten yet today," Chloe reminds her. Saphira nods with a smile. She will always be grateful to her friend for looking out for her well-being for all these years.

She leaves the tent and scans the camp for Laura and Amaris. Amaris will likely be in the medical tent, and Saphira spots Laura conversing with her fellow trappers only a short distance away. She briskly heads over to them, calling out once she's close enough.

"Laura! Meeting in Lady Artemis' tent with me and Amaris. It's important," she calls. Laura pauses in her stride, frowning at her.

"Monster level of important?" she questions, sounding concerned.

"Monster level," Saphira confirms. "Come on."

Laura nods and bids her trapper sisters a brief goodbye before jogging over to join Saphira on her way to Artemis' tent. They stop on the way at the medical tent and sure enough, when Saphira peeks inside, she finds Amaris busying herself with sorting through the herbs, bandages, ambrosia, and nectar. She is definitely one of the most organized and mature girls in the Hunt, always making sure everything is in perfect order and in good supply.

Upon noticing Saphira and Laura, she stops her task.

"What is it?"

Her tone makes it rather obvious that she's already fearing the worst. Saphira can't blame her. Amaris has been around almost as long as she has, and being a healer means that she has to bear witness to some horrible, gruesome sights.

"Meeting," Saphira says. She only needs to say that and the lead healer understands.

"I'll be right there."

. . .

Only a minute later, Amaris walks into Artemis' tent to find them both waiting for her. Saphira gives them a brief explanation of what happened… er, the slightly modified version, anyway. They seem almost unfazed, but that was expected. There isn't much that they haven't seen or experienced. However, this doesn't mean that they don't recognize the danger that is present.

"So, what should we do? Send out more patrols to scout for them?" Laura asks once Saphira has finished her story.

"We can't afford to send more girls on patrol," Amaris says, shaking her head. "There's so few us here as it is. Half our timber wolves and falcons are also gone. If we send hunters out, we risk leaving the camp nearly defenseless."

"Amaris is right. Short hunts will have to do for now. We can send our remaining falcons double-time for recon flights, but we can't risk exhausting them too much either," Saphira says.

Laura nods in agreement. "I'll get more traps placed around the perimeter and a few more farther out from camp."

"Shall we notify the girls?" Amaris asks.

"Let's wait until dinner for that," Saphira says, thinking about how Penny and Olivia were playing in the snow earlier. The camp seems to be in a relatively good spirit, enjoying the snowfall so she doesn't want to ruin it by telling them that there is a problem. "Let them enjoy their fun in the snow for now. No reason to dampen the mood at this moment."

Both Amaris and Laura give her an odd look and she frowns at them, raising a brow.

"What?"

"Nothing," Amaris replies, though she doesn't sound very convincing.

"It's just that, it's weird, hearing the word 'fun' come out of your mouth," Laura says.

Saphira blinks and for some reason, feels a small smile creep onto her lips. "I know I've been distant for… a long time, but the concept of fun is not alien to me."

"Whoa, and now you're smiling? I haven't seen you do that in a long time too," the lead trapper declares.

Amaris crosses her arms and nods. "I have to say, it is a most extraordinary sight, and a welcome one."

Gods… Saphira was well aware of the fact that she liked to be alone and generally kept her space clear of her sisters save for Chloe, but has she really been so… antisocial?

"I… I just think that I've been miserable long enough," she finally declares. "It's time that I've started to try to act like your sister again."

Amaris and Laura exchange a surprised, but approving smile.

"Okay, okay. You're making me feel weird," Saphira says, ushering them out of the tent. "Meeting is adjourned. We'll debrief the others over dinner. Back to what you were doing before."

"This bossy side is new," Laura remarks.

"Go!" Saphira insists again. Her sisters break into laughter, but they do as they're told. They each head off back to resume their pre-meeting activities, leaving Saphira to return to Chloe as promised. She finds her friend still in the supply tent, with a plate of food already prepared on the table. Two roasted ribs and a mug of freshly-squeezed berry juice.

"I've returned for my food, as promised," she announces.

"About time. I had to rotate the ribs over the fire twice to keep them warm," Chloe scolds her as she hands off her meal. Saphira accepts it and backs up to take a seat on a log near the fire.

"So, you gonna tell me what exactly happened out there?" Chloe asks, sitting beside her.

"There isn't much to tell that I didn't already tell you," Saphira says, feeling a twinge of guilt at lying to her friend of many years. "I was on a hunt, ran into a couple wolves, killed them, and came back."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

The daughter of Apollo regards her suspiciously, clearly not convinced, but seems to realize that's all she'll get out of her.

"Well, be careful out there. Actually, I don't think you should be going alone anymore," she remarks, looking a little worried.

"I'll be fine, Chloe. Besides, when was the last time you went on a hunt?" Saphira replies.

Chloe looks offended, though there is still humor in her eyes. "Excuse me? I still know how to hunt, thank you!"

Saphira chuckles and gently nudges her friend's ribs with her elbow. "I'll be okay on my own. Trust me."

"Ugh!" Chloe crosses her arms and glares at her. "You are so annoyingly stubborn."

"I'm aware."

Before anything else can said, Saphira feels a soft thud against her left shoulder blade. The impact came from behind and has her craning her neck to see what it was. A patch of snow clings to her jacket in the spot where the impact had occurred. What was that? She searches farther back with her eyes, scanning them over to a pair of guilty looking girls; Penny and Olivia, the two youngest who had been playing. They seem rather nervous, and it takes her a second to understand why. It's no secret that she's a bit of a loner and she typically likes her space from the other girls… her status as a high-ranking hunter and reputation as one of the best combatants also may have something to do with it.

"Sorry, Saphira!" Penny exclaims. "That snowball was supposed to be for Olivia!"

"We'll stop playing!" Olivia promises.

Saphira frowns at their apology. With a shake of her head, she leans down and scoops up a handful of snow and begins to mold it into the shape of a sphere.

"What are you doing?" Chloe asks curiously.

"This." Saphira finishes shaping the snowball and throws it back at the two youngsters, splattering Penny in the chest. The younger girl emits a surprised squeal, but her surprise is brief before she meets Saphira's gaze and breaks out into a wide, awe-filled smile. Olivia looks delightfully surprised as well, and the two girls begin to quickly arm themselves with snowballs. Saphira catches Chloe's eye, as the Apollo girl regards her with an expression of amazement.

"Care to try your luck against me?" Saphira challenges her, already gathering up snow for ammunition.

Chloe quickly earns a grin and scoops up her own handful of snow.

"You're on."

Within a minute, nearly the entire camp has engaged in the free-for-all snowball battle while onlookers only spectate with amusement. Saphira smiled and laughed more in this one snowball fight that she had all year. Her sisters had much fun and greatly enjoyed themselves, as did she. Where this sudden spurge of joy and desire for fun came from, she's not quite sure. All she knows is that she loved it, and realized just how much she missed it. Life is not so bleak as it seemed only a few days ago.

It is about time that she learned how to enjoy it again.


Hello, readers!

I hope you're continuing to enjoy the story. It seems like its popularity has grown a bit since my last author's note and it couldn't make me happier. I've been struggling quite a bit with some personal stuff and this is one of the few things that really makes me feel like there's something I can do. I so greatly appreciate the support and interest from all of you!

Just a small notice: I made some small edits in previous chapters concerning the sizes of the wolves. I thought all wolves were as big as how Lycaon was described. Cursed wolves are bigger than their normal counterparts, but it turns out that only Lycaon himself was a horse/bear sized giant. So the other wolves got a bit of a shrink.
Giving exact measurements is kind of hard, but I would place them at around 380 pounds, with Lykos being smaller at 350 pounds. Heightwise, Lykos would be 4'0, while his brethren are 4'6 at the shoulder.

So they're shrunk, but still much bigger than normal wolves. Dankana and Anemos, for example, are the biggest of the timber wolves, but even they are only 3' at the shoulder and 140 pounds.

For those who don't use Imperial
180 kilograms and 1.37 meters shoulder height for Wolves of Lycaon.
160 kilograms and 1.2 meters shoulder height for Lykos.
63 kilograms and .9 meters shoulder height for the timber wolves.

I hope this helps to picture them in the future! :)

Now to try and get to some of the reviews!

R: "Okay, I love how Lykos is so snarky. Looking back, I also like how you could see that he has a bit of an attitude, even without the internal monologue.

But a line's been crossed now, and hoo boy, talk about sticking your neck out for someone. Something tell me he's gonna get hurt a lot. Have family that's a vet, and dogs can get really nasty if they fight."

A: I had hoped people would accept this side of his personality. Happy to see this seems to be the case so far.

R: "This is a story that I didn't know I needed. Great chapter and a nice wholesome story, well at least so far."

A: Glad you like it! I hope I can continue to keep your interest.

R: "Something tells me that the metaphorical storm is nigh. That last line is just too ominous."

A: Soon. Not very soon, but soon, things will be happening :p

Once again, thank you all for the support. I hope everyone is doing well, especially with the Covid stuff going on. Stay safe and I'll be seeing you with the next chapter! :)

~ Shadow