Aloha. there! GrinWolf is here again, posting his 9th chapter of his first story...

I know you're shocked, since I don't upload very often my story, so...

Anyway,

READ (of course you have to read it)

ENJOY (hoping you like it)

REVIEW! (I accept everything, bad or good critics, because I have to improve my writing abilities, so tell me what my faults and virtues are!)

Chapter 9: First Day of Training

First rays of the sun hit Valen's eyes. He intentionally slept nearby den's entrance to be woken up early in morning, to begin Grin's training. He loudly yawned, and streched his old but powerful and muscular limbs, and went to den's spring to drink some water. He was not surprised that water was really cold, almost frozen, so he decided to plunge his head into water better to wake up. Cold water really helped him. After that, he noticed Grin was still sleeping, so he decided to shake him in order to wake him up, but resultless. "Hey, Grin, wake up, it's time" He said, firstly in a calm tone of voice, then almost screaming, but Grin answered him sleeply "Other five minutes, please…" then he rolled onto his other side, trying to continue to sleep. Valen was begainning to get slightly upset, but he ad an idea with which he would certainly have woken him up. He went back to the cold spring and dipped his left paw into it, leaving it immersed for a bit. After that bit of time, his paw's temperature was really low, and Valen returned back to the sleeping Grin.

He then put his frozen paw on Grin's nose, and almost immediately he jumped from sleep, yapping in fear and for thermal shock. Valen couldn't help but chuckle at his reaction, but Grin wasn't really pleased about that. "Hey" he said "Couldn't you wake me up in another way, could you?" ending this sentence with a slightly annoyed tone.
Valen answered him with a smile, remembering also what happened not long before, "I've tried, but you didn't wake up…And this metod seemed to me the most appropriate to wake you up from your hibernation" He let out a small chuckle. But then he heard a small growl coming from Grin's stomach. "We're hungry, aren't we?" "Yep, i'm so hungry that i could eat a whole caribou herd, and be still hungry!"

"Okay" Valen said "But this time i want you to come with me…it's time you have to learn how to survive as a wolf"

Grin's eyes widened and his tail started wagging uncontrollably, he was clearly excited to walk his first step to becoming a real wolf.

So he started following Valen through the forest, watching him constantly sniffing the air and the ground, as if he was searching for something. intrigued by his behavior, Grin asked him: "Why do you continuosly sniffa round? What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for… our breakfast, son" Valen answered him, and he nodded, understanding it.
Following Valen's sense of smell, they arrived in a expanse and green clearing, in which it was possible to see some strange, horned animals grazing peacefully the fresh and tender grass that grew here and there.

Getting a bit closer, it was possible to notice distinctly almost five of them, but they did not all look the same. Three of them were taller than others, and possessed a pair of antlers that looked very dangerous, and other two were slighly smaller, and they didn't wear any horns.

It was possible to see two of them, one with horns and one without them, grazing the grass separately, and other three engaged in a different activity. The two ones with antlers were engaged in a sort of battle, doing various animal sounds and hitting roughly each other with their antlers, while the hornless one was watching the entire scene not far from them.

"Perfect" Grin heard a whisper near him coming from Valen , but he noticed Valen wan't s standing on his feet anymore, instead he crouched in a sort of stealth position.

Grin eagerly wanted to know the meaning of this maneuver, and started asking, but was quickly cut off by Valen, who put a paw in front of Grin's muzzle in order to shut his mouth and spoke to him in a whispering tone:
"Shh, or we're gonna lose our breakfast!"

Grin nodded, and kept his mouth shout.

Valen was surely going to explain to him everything after, so he waited.

Valen thought this was a perfect occasion to strike, but he had to wait: his target was one of two elks, the one who would have lost battle. Infact this one would have been the most tired of all, and the easiest prey of the whole gang.

In the meantime, he whispered Grin to stay there and watch closely what was going to happen.

Then he decided to skulk closely to them fighting, crawling slowly, using tall grass that surrounded the clearing as a cover. After several minutes, he managed to arrive at an optimal point, in which he would have only jump to reach elks. He thought mating season was nearly over, but these two mooses were still fighting to to prove who was the most worthy for that female elk.

He waited until one of them was tired and doomed to defeat.

He saw one of the male elks tripping over his clogs, violently pushed back by his rival's antlers's force, and falling down, visibly exhausted, battle scars all over his body.

"Now!" Valen thought, and he jumped on the fallen elk, aiming for his throat. Within a few seconds, elk's throat was ripped open by a swift movement of his jaws, letting blood spurt from a massive hole in his neck. After a short cry of sufference, elk's body fell rolling on the ground, laying lifeless.

With a little effort, he obtained a excellent result.

Other elks, at predator's sight, began to be frightened and ran away, fearing for their lives.

Valen suddenly turned his head towards the place where Grin should be waiting, and shouted loudly:
"Hey, come on lil' guy, breakfast is served!"

He saw a rather small ball of brownish-white fur coming to him, knowing it was Grin. But he was a little bit afraid of what happened, when he saw Valen take the life of another living being.

Valen, noticing his fear, began to explain to him: "I know what you're thinking at… but it's nature and survival's law… Without fresh meat and water, we couldn't survive, so we have to hone our skills in tracking, stealthing and hunting down preys…Nature has given us sharp claws and fangs to accomplish that. We're wolves, we cannot do otherwise."

Grin was still a bit dazed, but seemed to understand.

"So" Valen continued, "Did you carefully observe what I did?"

"Yeah, almost all of it, except when you jumped on that… strange animal with horns…you were too fast!"

"Ah, however that animal was an elk, it's a quite common beast in these parts of the forest"
"But they were different-" Grin began to inquire
"Yes, they belong to the same species, but there's a difference between males and females. Males were ones with antlers and a more massive build; females instead were the smaller ones, with a lighter and slimmer build, and hornless." Valen stated.

"But, if they belong to the same species" Grin asked, tilting his head mazily "Why they were fighting each other?"

Valen couldn't not tell him about the real reason, that would involve… mating concept, and he was still too young for such a speech.

"Well… they were fighting for their territory, just as sometimes happens between us wolves" He said with a smile, hoping that the explanation was convincing enough.

"But…so why did the other three elks just watch and did not partecipate in it?"

Valen was going to run out of ideas to say to him. "Uh, i never thought these kids could be a real pain in the ass" He thought to himself.

Luckily, Grin's stomach growled loudly, like they were in presence of another wolf, and Valen was able to temporarily postpone his answer. "Come on, you're starving, let's eat!" He shouted happily.

When they were about to rush simultaneusly on elk's dead carcass, Grin was stopped by Valen, who shook lightly his head in disapproval. Grin was a bit surprised by his action, so he explained to him
"It is common practice among wolves that the first bite is reserved for those who have procured food…" After he said so, he began to tear apart elk's flesh, tearing its rough skin and reaching its delicious insides.

He gave to a sliming Grin a nod, and he began to tear into flesh too, savouring every bite of that delicious, juicy meat. When they finally finished their meal, Valen decided to drag the remains into his den to preserve them…

A lot of time has passed, it was almost an hour after midday, evaluating sun's position in the sky, and finally, after a little rest, Valen decided it was finally time to start their training session.

Grin was almost a month old, and ,in his old pack, that was period when the most promising puppies began to be trained, to become future Alpha Leaders.

He woke him up in the early afternoon, deciding to explain to him first how his training will be structured.

"Let me explain you training's structure. It's gonna be a long and a severe training, divided into four step, each of which will last approximately a month. These four steps are: General knowledge, Agility, Smart, and Strenght. Obviusly, you're gonna excel in few disciplines and despise other ones, nobody's perfect, but you have to develop a thorough understanding of all of these fields. Now let me talk about the first one: General knowledge.

In this first training month you're gonna improve your surviving skills, your abilities to trace food, water, improve and raise your sense of smell, indispensable for wolves. You're also gonna learn how to navigate and what main points of reference for orientations are."

Grin nodded: he was ready to face the challenge.

They come back to their previous hunting path, and they sat in the middle of clearing.

"In this first lesson we're going to awaken your sense of smell. Now take a deep breath and inhale air, focusing mainly on my scent"

Grin obeyed: he deeply breathe in air, closing his eyes to gain a greater concentration, staying focused on Valen's scent that he had learned well to know.

He could sense each type of odour floating into his nose: grass, flowers, tree's resin, blood's pungent smell still present from previous hunting session, and, among all those smell, was Valen's.

"Yeah, i got it…" Grin said "But now what…Valen?" He suddenly opened his eyes, to see him gone. Then he heard him shouting from somewhere : "Use your olfaction to find me!"

Grin firstly tried to locate sound's direction, directing rapidly his ears to focus on the direction of the sound source, but after his shouting, he couldn't hear anything else, only birds chirping and leaves rustling.

"Okay, time to put into practice what I've learned" He closed again his eyes, and focused on his olfaction, trying to recognize Valen's scent. He then followed his scent with his eyes closed, until he hit his head on something hard and rough. He yelped a little and found himself standing against a gigantic tree root.

He rubbed his head with his paw, saying "Ow, it hurts!"

He heard faintly a quick quiet chuckle, ascertaining that probably Valen had watched the entire scene.

Then he tried to focus again, but this time keeping his eyes opened, in order to watch where he was going.

This was more difficult for him: having to run more than one sense at time was proving to be a difficult task.

He then thought something: He could stop to sniff the air, closing his eyes and concentrating on Valen's scent, and then proceed in his scent's direction. It sounded a very good plan, for now.

With this new technique, within a half hour, he finally found Valen. He arrived at a tree's base on which it was possible to see some claw marks directed upwards, and he lifted his glance, seeing Valen standing in on a almost entirely hidden large tree branch.

"I think…" Grin began to say, visibily smirking "…I see a big old wolf up there…But i don't think wolves can climb trees, do they?"

Valen began to descend from the tree, jumping from higher branches to lower branches, using claws and his teeth, until he hit the ground with an aerial twist.

Grin watched the entire scene, amazed by such agility.

"Eh, eh… don't worry, boy, after this training you're gonna be able to do even more amazing tricks, I guarantee…" Valen said. "One small step at a time…"

Time has passed very quickly, and sun was setting on the horizon.

Grin was really tired: he had to play this special "hide and seek" session, becoming each time more and more complicated, until he was so exhausted to collapse to the ground and fall asleep.

Valen so got him by the scruff and took him into their den, letting him rest and making him recover his lost energies.

After he took a bite of leftover carcass , being lightly hungry ,and drink from the fount, he decided to drift to sleep too, to be prepared for tomorrow.

This first training day was REALLY tiring for Grin, don't you think? What is gonna happen afterwards?

I'm not gonna tell you, you have to read THAT!

GrinWolf here...over and out.