Few scraping sounds resonated across the mead hall, four children between five to ten years of age sat around the fire writing on their wooden slate. Laying next to them was a wolf taking a nape. It wasn't even a week later when more of the village's children joined the grey wolf's class. Ydis was the youngest of them all, he was one of two kids leaning against his tail. The other one was the second youngest, a girl named Dayir.The older one among them was Yarik, he was the son of Udutai and Takar was the son of Borgar. Both Yarik and Takar were pretty close to each other as both their parents were very gifted in the art of crafting with each having their own material of choice. Dayir stood up with her slate in hand, walked over to Lindvald's head and taped it. The wolf lifted his head, yawning and gazed at the fragile girl.

"Lind, is this right?"

Dayir asked as she raised her slate up.

"Did you ask Yarik or Takar to check?"

"N-no~"

"Hm, Yarik, Takar look at Dayir's spelling and tell me if you see something wrong."

Both boys checked the words and then confirmed with each other before one of them replyed to Lindvald.

"The word 'tree' is written with two e's."

"Correct. Dayir, I told you and Ydis to ask them first. It is a good practice for them as well as for you. Learning should be done together, not alone."

"Ooohhh~ the young Lindvald has a good point."

Grandma Brigit entered the classroom with a big smile on her face. Seeing the kids together as well as eagerly studying warmed her old heart.

"How about a milk tea break kids as I need to check on your teacher's health."

"Yes, grandma Brigit!"

The four children replied unanimously as they ran out of the room.

"And how is our teacher doing today?"

"Elder Brigit, please don't call me teacher. The children are teaching each other. I just happen to be in the same room when they are studying."

More wrinkles emerged around Brigit eyes as she chuckled at the wolf's poor excuses.

"Sure, sure. ... Let me take the bandages off and look at how your chest is doing. Take several deep breaths and tell me if you feel any discomfort or pain."

"Argh, I still feel a tender-like pain."

"Hm. The ribs seemed to grow back together just fine, I assume you still have a little bit of bruised lungs. Do you still get out of breath after a walk?"

"Yes, although I can go longer now but I still get out of breath easily."

"Hm. Yes, that speaks to the bruised lung rather than the broken ribs. I would say, I allow you the usual, only short walks, no playing around and lots of rest. The less you move around the faster you recover, especially for your lungs. As for the leg, let's talk about that after you can breath pain free."

"I understand elder Brigit. I promise I will continue to follow your instructions."

"Very wise of you teacher Lindvald."

After Grandma Brigit rewrapped the bandages around the wolf's chest and as she walked away she teased the wolf the same way she greeted him supported by a casual farewell wave. Lindvald gazed at the figure leaving the hall with tired eyes as he was still unable to convince her from calling him teacher. Not too long after the elder left, Ydis entered the hall with a bowl of water, followed by the rest of the students. Ydis set the bowl in front of the wolf and recited with the same tone of his mother.

"Drink it if you want to get better."

Lindvald saw a sparkle in Ydis' eyes. He chuckled as he understood that Ydis was eager for him to recover fast in order to get back being able to play with him outside.

"I will if everyone finishes their homework."

Ydis pouted for a moment before returning to his seat against the wolf's tail, following Ydis' example the rest of the children went back to study.

Udutai peeked into the mead hall and was about to laugh out loud at the sight in front of him. Two kids hugging a fluffy tail and his son's best friend and son leaning against the belly of a wolf, all of them taking a nap in that cute position. He wished his wife could have seen that unbelievable display. He tiptoed his way to the wolf and softly tapped on his shoulder. Lindvald opened his eyes at the slight touch and looked up. Udutai holds up a carved long stick with two curves on each end.

"How does it look? I tried to make it just like you described it."

"Hmm, the arcs themselves look perfect but next time try to use a straight branch rather than a natural curved branch. How does the bending go, can you show me?"

"Oh, I see, straight branch. ... Ah, sure."

Udutai bended the prototype of a new bow design using his knee as far as he could almost breaking it.

"How much does it feel, Udutai?"

"It needs to double my strength only to get it enough bend to put the string on, and even more so to fully flex it."

"Okay that sounds alright then, what about the string, did you already try to make the new one?"

"I did, but it ended up being too thick to use. You did warn me that it will take a couple of tries to get it. So I will keep trying."

Udutai kept interrogating Lindvald how to make the stronger bow string, even to the point that he ran back to his crafting bench to get some tools to perform in front of the wolf to understand exactly what he explained.

Yegu and Temur were rearranging one of the tables in the mead hall and some chairs, while Alaqa was stirring the food.

"Alaqa, I told the Miss already, you don't need to go out of your way to cook and eat here with me. Your home is perfectly fine."

Alaqa was waving with her cooking spoon as she replied with a kind but at the same time angry sounding voice.

"No, no, no. Lindvald shouldn't move around. Your leg is still broken, so we are having our dinner here. End of story."

"Lindvald, better to just give in against my mother. She is the chief of this household, letting my father still only be the vice-chief."

"Is that how you see us, son."

"Well, would you disagree with it father?"

"Ah... Just go fetch some more firewood."

Temur winked at Lindvald before disappearing. Yegu sighed and finished setting the table.

"How did your day go today Lindvald? I heard that Udutai stole you from the kids. He got as excited as a kid after you shared your bow knowledge with us."

"Well, I wouldn't say he stole me from the children as they were already taking their nap when Udutai visited me."

"I'm still amazed that Lindvald knows so much. I guess that comes from traveling around quite a bit. But I still can't see you as a caretaker of children."

"He is even a great teacher, Dad. From what I hear, even Ydis is now seriously studying. He already has all the calculations down. I'm now a bit jealous that I already learned it. I would be so interesting to see how Lindvald teaches."

"I barely teach them. Like I say to the children, studying is better done together. It's a way to strengthen what you learned by teaching someone else. At this point, I'm just a warm blanket for them."

"Hmm, yeah, sure. It isn't like I saw you play with Ydis before."

"Ah, well. He is quite a persistent kid."

"Looking back, I thought you had left us, but Ydis was indeed the one that brought you back. I also remember that Cotola was angry at me for inviting you into our homes. She said you influenced her son in a bad way, but look at now. Since you stayed in Frithdyr, we are having less worries. The attacks are less frequent, our archery has also improved, you shared with us new bows and you are even teaching our little ones. I did indeed a wise decision."

"Honey, the credit still goes all to Lindvald. He didn't really need to help us but did it anyway and even got hurt because of our mistakes. So don't praise yourself but rather be very thankful to Lindvald to everything he has done for us."

"Oh absolutely. I'm more than grateful to the stars that guided Lindvald into our small village. Don't get me wrong, Snowflake."

"Also Lindvald my dear, we recognized how capable you are. So give yourself a little more credits. Come, the dinner is now ready."