The wind was whistling through the snow covered pine trees. Lindvald was curled up like a ball, cursing to himself that he should have searched for another shelter than a tree to survive the snowstorm. It was already the second day in a row that it was raging and since Lindvald thought it would pass in less than a day, he didn't bother to search for a safer place. He just wanted to sleep the storm away. Unfortunately, the storm kept going, so the grey wolf just went basically into hibernation mode. Occasionally waking up from the strong wind or to shake off the heavy snow on top of him. During the short period he was awake, he briefly thought of the lost kid almost freezing to death in these woods.

'I hope the small one learnt his lesson and stayed in a warmer place.'

He kept questioning why humans would even live in this remote valley where there was nothing else than pine trees. Even more so if the winter season was so harsh with days long storms. All that he could find was herds of deer, some small animals like bunnies and squirrels as well as the one time he saw a lynx hunting a bird. As Lindvald thought back to the encounter with the searching party, astonished by their very primitive weapons, simple longbows with bone arrowheads and sharpened staffs. In Lindvald's eyes only the leader had some sort of proper weapon, an axe. From the shape of it, it was definitely not a battle axe however it was the only tool that could seriously hurt him. The grey wolf theorized about all kinds of things about the village before falling back asleep.

Ears twitching at every small sound he could hear while the grey wolf was staring at a small black hole under a tree trunk. After three days of starving and sleeping Lindvald was too exhausted to properly hunt, so he was just waiting for a bunny to pop out of his den to have a small snack. He was about to snap the ears of the bunny when a loud but low lasting howl drove the bunny back into his den. The grey wolf looked up, he recognized that specific sound. A horn. It came from the direction of the village. It was definitely a summoning or a warning call out. Lindvald spent almost two weeks in these woods but that was the first time happening. As the horn sound scared all the animals away, his hunting was basically over for the time being. Curious and nervous about the unknown danger that he had yet to encounter, Lindvald thought it might be smart to know what the villagers were fighting against. The shadow underneath the wolf flowed like  black water into the air forming a raven and it flapped its wings to fly over the trees and made its way towards the village. Looking through the eyes of his shadow, Lindvald observed as some of the villages were guiding a herd of deer behind some fences while the other group were surrounding and attacking a big white furred beast. The creature ignored the humans and just charged straight for the deer. The raven orbited over the field of action, while Lindvald was thinking of the poor position of the hunters as they were trying to protect their livestock from their attacker. Having trouble distinguishing the creature from the snow white background, the raven shadow flew down to get a better observation angle. As he landed on a branch, he noticed a pile of white slowly moving towards the villages who were trying to calm their deer down. There was a second one and that one was about to sneak behind the villagers who were clearly unaware of the immediate danger behind them. Due to the couple of days of snowstorm, he wasn't too far from the village. He was already sprinting towards them before he even could rethink if it was a clever choice. Who knows what may happen, the hunters might attack him in order to defend the only food source they have from any enemy they see. However, his instinct as a fighter and as a kind soul kicked in, that told him to rush in and help the people in need. Or maybe he just wanted to have the familiar feeling of excitement of a fight. He really couldn't tell what was more the case. The only thing he could think of was, would he arrive there in time. The grey wolf hastened like serpentine through the forest before a bright light shined in the horizon and as he stepped past the edge of the woods a snow covered meadow came into view. Without hesitating, he ran towards the scared up deer herd. The moment Lindvald understood that the herdsmen noticed him rushing towards them, he shouted at the top of his lungs to them.

"Watch your backs!"

One of the hunters who was fighting next to protect the deer fences from the already on site white beast turned his head and aimed his bow at the grey beast. Only as the grey wolf totally ignored him and just passed him, did the archer understand that the shout was not meant for the hunters but the people watching over the deer. As the archer was about to warn them of the new coming danger, did he catch sight of the sneaky white beast behind them. The archer drew his bow at the secretly charging white beast and as he was about to fire his arrow, the grey wolf jumped over the deer herd and landed right in front of the white creature. Lindvald looked at the herdsman and yelled.

"Take care of the other one! I got this one!"

As Lindvald shifted his focus back to the danger in front of him, he gave a loud bark followed by a heavily growling as he put out his fangs. Hearing behind him the callouts of the hunters to coordinate their attacks and defenses against the white creature, Lindvald analyzed with one look where the strength and weaknesses would lie of the white furred being standing before him.

'Big frame, maybe barely bigger than me, which I guess makes him slower than me. Also a big bite but the most dangerous part, I would say, is their claws.'

Lindvald launched forward two steps before taking a turn to attack one of the white beast sides. Just like he assumed, the beast took some time to shift his balance to counter the wolf's bite attack. The beast swung one of his paws towards Lindvald's head, but he was expecting it and thus just took a side step to avoid the beast's claws. The grey wolf circled his opponent several times with always the same goal of sticking his fangs into the neck of the white danger. However, Lindvald underestimated the larger arm range of the white creature and thus only got two bites on their shoulder and their back respectively. Absolutely concentrated in his fight, the grey wolf wasn't aware that more archers came from the village to aid their friends. He only paid attention to his surroundings as a powerful roar deafened his ears for a split second. Noticing that the white creature was retrieving back into the darkness of the forest, Lindvald took the chance to look at the other battlefield. The other creature had half a dozen arrows sticking out of his body and it seemed that it was also running away. As the fighting died down some of the hunters and the archers started to help the herdsmen gathering and calming the deer down from the sudden attack, while others rushed towards the grey wolf. Lindvald's muscles tightened up as a preparation to make a dash in case the humans would attack him, despite his tension he didn't put up his fighting stand. He saw that the archers looked their arrows into the bow but didn't draw them, while three individuals slowly approached him. They were whispering among themselves and as they came closer and closer Lindvald recognized one of the hunters, as it was the one he met when he handed the lost child over. The person in the middle seemed to be their leader whereas the hunter Lindvald already met stood to his left gesticulating something. The leader nodded to the hunter and stared into the grey wolf's eyes. Lindvald bowed.

Seeing as the grey beast glared back to him and gave a head sign, the leader took a deep breath.

"I want to thank you on the village's behalf for protecting us from those bears… And also for finding and returning the child from a few days ago."

The leader's words were sincere yet sounded hesitant, not in fear but in uncertainty if the beast in front of him would really understand him as his companion told him.

"How is the kid doing?"

Lindvald felt uncomfortable with the sincerity of him helping them, not knowing how to respond to it, he just changed the subject to something that he also really wanted to know so his mind could rest. Everyone who was near enough of the grey wolf to hear him speak, were absolutely surprised. Some gasped, some held their breath and others raised their eyebrows. The leader, still astonished, tried to compose himself somewhat by answering.

"Ah, yes. Ydis is back on his feet. If you hadn't found him that time, he would have been in greater danger."

"Glad to hear that he is doing better… I will get going, now that you thanked me."

Lindvald was about to turn away and disappear into the forest, when the leader raised his arm and quickly questioned.

"We wanted to ask if it was you that ate one of our deer two to three weeks ago?"

"Yes, it was me. I must apologize for that. It was my first day in the woods and I didn't know that the deer had owners. Consider my help today as compensation for the deer."

The grey wolf bowed again as a sign of apology. The leader and their companions looked at each other with a questioning expression on their face.

"If this great one has only killed one of our deer, aren't you staring at the moment? There is nothing else in these woods than deer for beasts like yourself to hunt."

"I also noticed but there are still some bunnies and squirrels hiding, one only needs to know where and how to find and hunt them. It is true that it is not much but to survive it’s enough."

"How about an arrangement? You seem to be a very intelligent being and as you saw earlier, we have since a long time trouble fighting those bears. What if we provide you with some meat and shelter and you help us fight the bears off. What do you think?"

"I would say, it isn't a bad deal. But why would I put myself in danger only to get some extra meat, that I theoretically could just hunt myself."

"Ahm? I … guess there is no real reason to accept our proposal. Well anyway, we thank you for all the help you gave us so far."

The leader imitated the bow from the wolf, while the archer next to him started yelling to their leader.

"Yegu, why are you already giving up, you weren't even really trying. You didn't see how he single-handedly fought the bear away and he even injured that thing. You know how many of our animals we already lost. If this continues we will not make it over the winter."

Yegu kicked the archer on his shinbone to make him shut up and whispered back.

"I know but would you risk your life unnecessarily? We were already absolutely lucky that he helped us, otherwise our boys would have been hurt or worse case dead now. It is our problem not his, so it is understandable that he doesn't want to involve himself in our troubles."

Lindvald's ears twitched as he was listening to their conversation. He took a look around and saw the herdsmen and the fighters exhausted, some were even resting on the ground while looking at him. He exhaled.

"How about this? I will spend one night in the village and sleep over your proposal. And then tomorrow, I will tell you my decision."

Yegu, the archer and the hunter all looked up in relief. It wasn't an agreement yet but the chance was there.

"Absolutely! That sounds perfectly fine. Feel free to look around and rest. I will arrange a sleeping place and a meal after introducing you to our village elder."

Now all three people in front of the wolf bowed in appreciation for their reconsideration. The grey wolf walked towards them while introducing himself.

"I guess now it is the best moment to properly introduce myself. My name is Lindvald and I'm a spiritual animal of the wolf species."