It's for the Moon Godnes to know

Chapter 3

Angels POV

My father let me understand that he expected me to hunt in his place the days when he did not himself. This is how the next years of my life went. When my father had been out drinking, I got up the next day to hunt in his place. When I got home he took  my prey and handed it in the pack house as his own. The skins he still took and sold to have money to drink for. The better I became at hunting, the more often he had money to drink and the more often I had to hunt for him. I still had to help my mother at home in the house so I was tired when I got to bed. Over time, I found out how many things grew in the forests that one could eat. I let my mother have my breakfast, and then found food in the woods to eat, so we were both less hungry. It was around this time that I began to remember the stories she had told all my life, and often I got her to tell them at night before I went to bed. She told of a time when wolves should not hide from man. About the time male wolves did not choose a mate, but where the goddess chose one. I remember how she told about the bond between two mates. She always sounded so dreamy and a little sad at the same time. I remember one night I asked her if it had been like that for her when she turned fifteen and got her wolf. She shook her head violently and I saw a tear in her eye which she quickly got wiped away. "No, my angel, when I was fifteen and had to have a mate, your father was eighteen and needed a mate to give him children and look after his home. His father lived in the house next to ours, and our fathers had agreed that your father should take me as his mate." I could see my mother's cheeks turning red, I thought she was glad at the memory and then asked:

"So you were happy, weren't you?" My mother looked quickly at me and then nodded with a small false smile. But what I saw in her eyes was not joy, it looked most like shame. I was confused but when my mother seemed upset I would not ask more and I did not have others I dared to ask. I never did ask again, I just somehow knew, that fated mates was a thing in the past, not for wolfs anymore, not for!

I often caught pheasants and I found out that the girls who worked in the packhouse and took care of peeling and skinding the prey, often toke the long tail feathers from the male pheasants, they broudt them to the traveling traders who came to our settlement. I even started taking a few of them, not too many, so no one would notice. When a traveler came with fish or fresh fruit, I traded the feathers for food and then my mother and I could have a little more to eat. When I had been hunting for a year and had become really good at catching rabbits, I asked my father to teach me how to skin the animals so I could make sure the skins were proper and did not grt harmed when the people who worked in the pack house did it. My father smiled lazily at me, but taught me what I was asking for. When I turned twelve, I began to fur the rabbits myself, as well as to hand them in myself, separately from the rest of the prey that my father had handed over. I saved a couple of the skins and let my dad get the rest without letting him know how many rabbits I actually caught.

The skins I had saved, I sold to the traveling merchants and that way I got money to buy things for my mother and me. We got some newer clothes that could keep us warm, but also an extra set so we could wash without doing it in our underwear.

When I was almost fifteen years old, I took courage and asked my father to be allowed to keep a pair of skins so that my mother and I could get new footwear, and it was one of his good days, since I had several rabbits and pheasants whit me home that day, in addition to a fox. He could probably imagine how much money the fox skin would bring in and then he would be able to drink much more. He let me take five skins and then happily went up to the pack house. The day before I turned fifteen, my mother had gotten new shoes for the first time in as long as I could remember. I myself had made a pair of small boots and a pair of warm mittens. My father looked unhappy at that, but before he could scold me, I hurried to tell him that I was looking forward to being able to hunt better in the winter, now that my hands would not get cold. He just nodded then, but I knew he was still not happy. I turned fifteen and my wolf woke up.

I was happy, my wolf was very pleasant company and she could, as my father had promised, hunt. The first time I shifted to my wolf, I did it behind the hut and only my mother witnessed it. She whined with delight.

"You have the cutest wolf my angel!" She said, sliding a hand over our fur. She described our fur as blond with a touch of red. Our eyes were light green, like the leaves on the beech when it springs out in the spring. We were slightly larger than her wolf, but still far from as large as most male wolves. I could feel it giggling in my wolf to be allowed to take a run, but I asked her to wait. Why I do not know, but I still felt naked, even though we were covered in fur.

On our first hunt together, I could suddenly feel her move and try to take over. Before I could ask her questions, she asked me to sniff the air. There I caught it, a faint scent of something raw and yet so fresh. I hurried to throw the clothes and hide it under a bush. As soon as I was done she took over and even before our front legs hit the ground she was running. I leaned back, and enjoyed the ride. She ran through the woods without hesitation, jumping over streams and large rocks. Then she slowed down and finally almost crawled across the ground. The scent from before had become much stronger and I could feel how adrenalin started to make her shake with excitement, and me too. She snuck towards a clearing and just as our head came free of a tree we saw a whole herd of deer.

"Which one should we take?" She asked and I studied them, "That one!" I said, staring our eyes at a female that was barely as big as several of the others. She almost sighed "It's so small!" I laughed "So am I, and I have to carry it home!" She nodded and then the hunt was on!

She snuck closer, only when the deer spotted us and started to run, did she jump up and set after our target. She ran in between the many animals and got them scattered in smaller herds. She kept spreading the animals until she had our hind isolated from the others. I got a knot in my stomach from excitement, I had never even known how to grab a particular deer. But my wolf's instincts were incredible and before I could think a single thought we were on the side of the deer and my wolf crashed into it whit full force. The animal overturned and immediately tried to get up again, but my wolf grabbed it by the throat just below its head and held on. Even when the deer came up on its legs again, she hung on. Slowly the deer lowered to the ground and soon I could hear her heart stop beating. My wolf let go of the kill, sat down and howled with joy. From afar I could hear other wolves howling, but no one came to us. So we switched back and I picked up the deer and walked naked back to where my clothes were. That day the whole family celebrated! My mom and I with the good food we had, when Alpha rewarded me with another leg as this was my first big prey. My father, on the other hand, went out and drank himself half unconscious. That night he was carried home by two drunken friends who threw him into bed before patting my mother on the back and asking her to take care of him. However, she and I looked at each other and then went together into my room, where I now had a real bed, it was still small, but we once again found the space.