The Guardian of the Forest

The old gander followed me up close as I took the abandoned eggs of his colourful flock out of the nesting boxes. There were ducks, chickens, and other geese like him, feasting on the excess cabbage leaves from the head I had harvested. He did not need to eat as much these days.

The forest of perpetual summer. My home was unique, as I had learned in my travels. This gander was the first to take refuge here on what would become our homestead. After him were foxes, rabbits, deer and more farm animals such as sheep, goats and multiple types of cattle. Those needed a roof over their head, so I built one. Now it was getting too small for their children. I had barely dropped off the eggs in the house that I heard worrisome howls from one of the wolf packs of the forest.

A group of orcs entered, hunting as they pleased, with no respect for nature’s children. Terrorizing all my friends, leaving some of them half-eaten or skinless; the wildlife was in uproar. Even brave little sparrows came to warn me. I brought my wrath upon those trespassers. They acted like fools swinging their rusty swords. Probably stolen during a village raid. One roar froze them in fear. As I was distracted, their archer was quick enough to hit me with a poison arrow. I would have required the help of the wizard. If it weren’t for something bipedal running towards me from behind.

I let out a thundering growl in hopes it wouldn’t get the jump on me. The creature stopped in its tracks only to approach again slowly but still breathing heavily. The sparrows chirped with excitement. I was glad to know it wasn’t a threat. As I turned to see it, a voice arose, talking in a strange tongue. Suddenly, this foreign language became understandable as they were accompanied by images, scents, tastes, and feelings blossoming in my head.

“Are you hurt?” She looked human, but pale, with even paler hair. Her dress looked heavy with wool and had earthen tones under the dirt caked on it. She smelled like she had been in contact with men in iron armours. There was something sweet about her too. Her worried gaze, for a creature she had never met before, one that could clearly crush her. “I can feel your pain,” she continued. It reminded me of the searing throb in my shoulder I couldn’t stop my panting. “Let me help you.”

Humans didn’t dare to enter the forest. So, what was this woman doing in front of me? And how comes I could understand her? She was speaking a language I didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” She came in arm’s length, as I was asking myself these questions. “I’ve always talked to animals that way. I only realized it was odd when my parents begged me not to tell anybody about it.”

I noticed her observing my features. There was no other beast like me I knew of, neither did she, from her curiosity. She gasped. Her eyes drawn to the foul arrow stuck in my shoulder.

“May I help you?” She was soft-spoken.

Yes, I answered with thoughts, as it had become obvious to me. She had access to them.

She inspected near my wound with her fingertips. It had already a burning swell. She took off the yellow apron tied around her waist. She used it so she wouldn’t touch the poisoned arrow with her bare skin.

“One, two,” she counted “three!” she pulled the pestilential thing out of my body.

I whimpered despite my efforts not to. The wound it left was getting more and more painful by the second. She laid her palms on the hole oozing with pus and put her forehead over them in a strange ritual.

“Heal,” it was a command in a small whisper.

The searing throb instantly begun to resorb. When she took her hands off, she sighed at the gash still being open.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t heal you fully. At least it doesn’t stink anymore.” She wiped off the pus with the clean parts of her soiled apron.

Thank you, I was in great pains.

“I have healed horses before, but this required a lot more energy than I thought it would.” She leaned on my back, careful not to put pressure around the cleansed wound.

The image of a draft horse groomed by a smiling boy and a feeling of nostalgia accompanied her statement. Her mind darkened, and she seemed about to cry. She backed away. I took the chance to rub my head against her shoulder in consolation. She held it for a minute. When she let go, she had a single tear rolling down from her right eye. I attempted to lick it off, but the tip of my tongue took the whole cheek. This made her giggle, and she found back her smile. Her growling stomach interrupted the moment.

You are hungry.

“I don’t remember the last time I ate.”

Come. I will feed you. I had plenty to share back at home.

The odd human female followed me, with a lot of trust, for a first meeting. She gazed at the sway of my big fluffy tail from time to time. I know that because, whether or not it had been intentional, she was thinking so loud some of her conclusions reached my mind. Not a bear, she repeated to herself, bigger, slimmer snout, darker.

We arrived in the grass fields of my homestead. Dairy cows grazed nearby. My friends were all enjoying the last hours of sunlight for the day. When she turned to them, I could understand her questions, although they weren’t directed towards me. “Why are you all so close to a large beast with sharp teeth?”

I couldn’t perceive their answers, but she laughed as the old gander honked.

I rose up the steps to the house. She ran along to catch up. She was climbing the short stairs to the porch when I shed my fur. She had watched her steps not to stumble, and when she raised her head back up, I had already taken on my usual shape, that of a human-looking male with sharp teeth.

“Eep!” she covered her eyes while turning away.

Seems like humans were as prudish as elves. I pulled my clean pants out of one of the straw baskets by the door.

“I am clothed,” I finished buttoning my pants.

“Eep!” she squeaked again, hearing my voice. I sensed it echoing in her mind.

She slowly turned to me, uncovering her face.

“Now, you are scared?” I had a chuckle.

“No,” she stared at me from the corner of her eyes, with red puffed cheeks. “I wasn’t scared, just surprised.”

“Does this appearance upset you? You seem flustered.”

“You’re still shirtless.”

Was that why she kept glancing towards my chest? It was funny since in this shape, I was still very hairy. It was kind of like I was already wearing one.

“It’s too warm for those.” I turned my back to her to open the front door.

“You’re bleeding again!” She gasped.

She was looking at the cut. It felt like a mere scratch after she had cleansed it.

“It’ll scar on its own.” I rolled my shoulder.

“But it might get infected again.”

Infected? Was that what she called the swelling and pus? Her voice had worries in it, which made me yield easily.

“I have some ointment. Do you want to help me put it on?”

She nodded with a serious air.

“Come in,” I welcomed her into my home.

I grabbed the jar the wizard gave me out of the drawer next to the bed. She observed the room that made up my living space. I put the clay jar in her hand. I don’t know where she came from, but she seemed impressed by the height of the ceiling. Seeing her look up that high it made me realize I had to gaze down to view her. I had only watched humans from afar and had always hoped they would be more around my height. She was only as tall as a male elf.

I sat on the bed and tapped beside me. She inspected the contents of the jar and nodded at its scent. She climbed on and kneeled behind me, examining my shoulder. Her initial embarrassment was already gone.

“Do you have anything to clean the blood with?” Odd question.

“Just use your tongue.”

“No! that’s dangerous!”

“Why? I lick my wounds all the time.”

“The human mouth is full of little creatures; a human’s bite has a lot more chances to get infected than a dog’s.”

“What creatures?”

“They are tiny living beings, so small you can’t see them with your bare eyes. Those can make wounds foul.” Her description was nonsense. All I took from it was that she could sense things alive in her mouth.

“You’ve got those in your mouth! Isn’t it dangerous?”

What if she swallowed them?

“It’s not supposed to be, as long as they stay in your mouth and don’t get in the blood. The bad ones anyway. You have some too, all around your body, even inside. They are what digests the food in your guts and make you stink when you don’t wash.”

She did swallow them! Now they lived in her stomach.

“Parasites? You must go to see the wizard. He knows how to deal with those.”

“Those are tapeworms. Those I am talking about are much smaller. Like I said, a lot of them are necessary to live. You need to digest food fully.”

Well, if she said I need them, I guess I better keep them. But what was that about the stink?

“I stink?”

“I know I do. I sweated a lot from running around in the woods. And the journey before that. The guards wouldn’t let me bathe by fear I would run off. I still did.”

I turned again, baffled. She didn’t stink, even from up close.

“Eep! Too close.”

She looked flustered again. Maybe she was sick. Was it those tiny parasites?

“You don’t stink. You smell is quite pleasant,” I watched her ears reddening some more.

Was I the one making it look as if she was out of breath? That was a weird reaction to have.

“What do I smell like?” I was serious, not sure why I wanted to know her opinion.

She leaned in; her breath was shaky. I sat back in my original position, waiting for an answer.

“You need a bath.” So, she thought I stunk, it made me sadder than it should have.

She pulled out a clean cotton scarf hidden in one of the pockets under her filthy sir coat. She wiped the blood around the wound before applying the ointment. Humans too bathed in water. I rarely bothered unless I had mud on me. “Do you want to go for a swim after we eat.” I pictured her the place I had the habit to go to.

The pit in the slim river behind the house, how the crisp water would sink in my skin.

“Sounds lovely,” she kept a hand on my back after smearing the wizard’s medicine.

The woman’s gaze followed me in silence as I cooked cabbage stew. I had to make it good, so good she would want to eat it again. If I won her through her stomach, then maybe she would stick around for a while. I tasted it one last time before adding whisked eggs to create soft filaments. I poured half in two maple bowls I carved myself. I put in birch spoons and handed one to my guest, who waited at the table. I sat across from her at first, and she seemed to get out of her daze once she started eating.

“It’s delicious!” she exclaimed.

I couldn’t help but grin with pride.

“Eating good food is how I got so big.” I smacked my gut half-covered by my pants’ stomacher.

She had a laugh that flowed like a fresh sea breeze. Wanting to hear it from up close, I joined her on her side of the table on the bench.

“Why did you do that?” she played with her food.

“Because I want to.”

We both ate in silence for a bit. From the corner of my eyes, I could see her brighten up at every spoonful.

“I never told you my name,” she gasped when her bowl was empty. “It’s Lila. What are you called?”

“The Guardian of the forest.”

“That’s not a name. It’s a title, isn’t it? You have duties attached to those words.”

“That’s what the Wizard calls me.”

“Wizard? Is that a name?”

“I don’t know. I just call him Wizard.”

She laughed again, seeing my mental image of the wise and stern, white-bearded man.

“He raised you, didn’t he? You see him as a father.”

“That’s right. Who was the boy you showed me? You had a similar feeling, but it was different.”

“That was my little brother. I didn’t know you saw that.”

A tear dropped from her eye.

“You got separated from him?” I held her with one arm.

“He’s dead,” she sobbed, leaning in.

She jumped into my chest, wrapping her arms around my waist. Rubbing her back silently, I figured she had had a long journey here. She smelled like so many places. She had crossed fields and swamps. Her hair had the scent of coniferous woods up in the mountains. When she was done crying, the leftover stew had gone cold.

“Do you still want to go to the creek?” I asked her in an attempt to put something else on her mind.

“I’m sorry I cried like that. We barely know each other.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t get to see people often.”

“You are right about the creek. It’ll help me cheer up a bit. I haven’t bathed in a while.”

The little river was a few minutes’ walk out of the fields. Lila held one of my shirts that were unused when I wasn’t visiting anybody. I had lent it to her to change into since she insisted on washing her clothes. Once we arrived, she sat on a rock and begun to take off her stockings. She stopped once she saw me watching her.

“Turn around, please. I don’t want you to see me undress.”

Complying to her demand, I revealed to her one of my observations,

“Most sentient races I have come across don’t like to be naked around others. But they share communal baths. And when I am in my other form, no one minds I’m naked. But in this one, they react like you did. I wonder why that is.”

“It’s shyness.”

As she said that, she showed me the emotion which made me want to hide behind a tree.

“So that’s what it is. They’re scared, kind of. It’s a different sort of fear. Then why don’t you insist for me to leave?”

“Sparrows told me you fought some orcs that entered the forest. I would rather have you nearby if they came back.”

“No need to worry about that. They are dead. I might not eat other animals. My teeth and claws still serve a purpose.”

“You don’t eat meat?”

“Do you?”

“Rarely, I ate a rabbit once who died of old age. I cried the whole time.”

“You can’t really eat your friends.”

“No.”

I heard her jumped in the water. I was eager to join her. Swimming was always more fun with friends. I hoped we would become friends.

“They are less shy in the baths because it is socially acceptable to be naked there,” she replied once she popped her head out of the water taking a loud breath.

She moved around the water. Then I heard the slap of wet fabric against stone. I listened to her pulled herself out on the ledge.

“Be careful, it’s slippery over there,” I warned her.

“Did you look?” her question held weariness.

“I didn’t, you’re loud.”

“Anyway, you may turn around now.”

She had her back to me. I threw my pants off and jumped in, splashing her, but she didn’t complain. Instead, she held up the apron she used to rid me of the arrow.

“I’ll have to burn this,” she said to herself with but inside and outside voices.

Holes stood where the arrow’s head had touched. It was too contaminated. She carried on and washed the rest of the muddy clothes and sweaty smock as best as she could. She was going to need to launder them with lye water. When she was done, she asked me to look away again. All the sudden there was a big splash. I was thankful she had fallen into the deep water and didn’t hit her head on the ledge. She dipped her head to scream under water.

“Fuck!” Her head rose out of the water.

It must have been a swear the way she said it. She held on to the ledge as I rushed to her side as I smelled blood in the water.

“Are you hurt? What happened? Did you slip?” I stopped myself from lifting her out of the water immediately.

She took a breath.

“I slipped, and my leg hurts.”

She let me pull her to shore and lift her up to carrying her to the mossy rock she had sat on earlier. When I stepped back, she eeped again, hiding her face in her hands.

“Please get dressed,” she begged me. She had the wrong priorities here.

“Your leg is bleeding.”

“It’s just a scratch. Put your pants on.”

I grunted while I did as she asked and threw her the shirt. She put it on with her eyes still closed.

“You seem shyer about seeing me naked than the other way around,” I told her as I kneeled to grab her leg. I licked it and she tried to pull back her leg, but I was a lot stronger than her. I could have ripped it off if I wanted. “It’ll stop the bleeding. Quit wiggling.”

“But what if...?”

What was wrong with her? She was hurt! An annoyed growl slipped out of my throat.

“Eep!”

At first, I thought I scared her, but instead of her blood leaving her face, it was completely flushed. She kept her mouth shut and averted her gaze. I was shocked to see her be so submissive. It was proof that I didn’t know her, no matter how much it felt like I did due to our means of communication. As our skin touched, I could sense that she felt my hands, warm large to her, immobilizing her leg and my tongue, lapping up the blood, stinging her wound a little. When I was done, I kept a hand still beneath her leg as if afraid to cut that bridge between us. She was upset with me. I had been a bit rough with her.

“I’m sorry, I growled at you; it was mean.” I tried to tell her why I did that, “Now I know how you felt earlier about my shoulder.”

She pouted at me, swatting my hands off of her.

“I might forgive you, if, you go get my clothes back from the other bank.”

“As you wish.”

Her surprised gasp indicated to me that jumping over a river this small was a new sight. I grabbed the rolled-up pile of ringed clothes and hopped back on her side.

“If we spread them on the branches around here, the morning sun will dry them tomorrow,” I indicated to her. She attempted to stand up to do so, but I laid his hand on her shoulder, keeping her sat down as my eyes were drawn back to her wounded leg. “If you walk, it’ll start bleeding again. I’ll hang them.”

She didn’t talk back but nodded with a yawn. I hung her clothes to dry I quick as I could, seeing how she was about to fall asleep sat down. I dropped on one knee, waking her up.

May I? I asked through thoughts.

She nodded, and I scooped her up with her shoes in one hand. When we crossed the edge of the grazing field, I broke our silence.

“Am I forgiven?”

“Yes,” she took her time answering, “only because I know you meant no harm. It was still scary. I had never been growled at before I met you.”

“I will try not to do it again.” It was second nature to me since I spent a lot of time with wolves.