“That might just end up calling the boars for us,” Leoric said with a harumph as he squinted back to Baldir’s prone sleeping form.

Leoric and Scritch ventured into the woods, not knowing what they’d find. Leoric knew his druidic shapeshifting powers to be good enough to make him a formidable foe to any boar that would come their way. Scritch, on the other hand, was not quite a match for one at her current size and skills. He kept a keen eye on her, but she seemed to be enjoying herself as she rooted through underbrush, tunneling through leaf litter, shrubby plants and then up trees with snuffling curious glances around. She spent as much time in the trees up high and looking around as she did circling the woods around him.

“Grandpa!” She said in a sharp whisper that caught his gaze. She was clinging upside down to a tree trunk about eye level to him. He looked over as her tail flopped.

“What’s up, Scritch?” He asked.

“Can’t find any shinies,” She said with a pout.

“Well, you can find something to eat, no? Leoric asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not hungies yet,” She said before skittering to right herself and circle the trunk with her sharp little claws ticking at the crumbling bark.

“You’ll be hungry later, surely?” Leoric said as he looked for signs of large creatures. Boars were supposedly regular in this area.

“Then I’ll kill something then,” She said as she leapt from a branch and landed onto another with a scrabble.

“What if there’s nothing there to kill?” Leoric asked as he moved more towards the south.

Scritch looked puzzled.

“Always something to kill,” Scritch said as she scrambled to a trunk, lightly dug her claws in and slid slowly down the tree trunk to leave long scratch marks down it until she reached about six foot off of the ground where the bark was heavily disturbed. It interrupted her slide and sent her tumbling to the ground in the leaf litter below.

“Welp, found a boar mark,” Leoric said.

“Smells like angry piggies,” scritch said before she scrambled around in the ground sniffing.

“Big angry piggies,” Leoric agreed as he looked around and did his best to make some noises that could attract the attention of something bigger.

Scritch climbed back up the tree and looked out into the distance with her little eyes squinted with small slitted pupils.

“Haha! His horns are on his face,” Scritch announced as she stared out into the distance.

“What?” Leoric said as he looked out.

“The angry piggy,” Scritch said, just as Leoric heard the heavy footstep and snort of something in the distance.

Leoric readied himself with his prepared chant and lurched forward, spilling into the shape of the great grizzly he had before. Scritch looked down at him with a tilted head and watched as Leoric braced himself against a tree and stood tall, threatening, readying his claws for the Boar that was surely to come.

The rooting snorts and harsh steps were growing closer. Underbrush moved, bushes rustled and a tree bowed as they waited, ready to meet the monster on its own turf.

“Get ready,” The bear snarled in something like Leoric’s voice.

“Scritch pulled her arbalest from her back and aimed it into the brush. The leaves rustled, Leoric’s heart raced.

From the bush before them stepped a small boar, no bigger than a bushel basket, its tiny tusks just barely poking from its haired snout. It even had cute little stripes going up its sides and Leoric paused. It was so cute!

He canted its head at it as it looked up at him with big gleaming eyes.

“Did you get lost from the heard?” He asked it. It gave a little squeak, a grunt and began to grizzle at the ground curiously.

There was a click, a twang of metal, and it took Leoric a solid moment of pause to realize what had just happened. The baby boar before them gave a silenced squeak and found itself pinned to the ground much like the notice that sent them there had been.

“Scritch, what the hells?” Leoric whispered to her. The piglet twitched.

“I’m hungies now,” She said as she worked on reloading her arbalest.

“Wait, why are you reloading and not coming to go get it?” Leoric asked.

“It has a grandpa, too,” Scritch said before holding up the arbalest and aiming it out just in time for a a large and harried looking mother boar to burst free with wild mad eyes.

“I think it’s angry,” Scritch said as the momma boar took a moment to asess the situation.

There was a moment of hesitant pause as Leoric wondered if his great bear of a form was going to be enough to dissuade the aggression of the sow. It seemed to be doing a set of complex mental gymnastics as it eyed the piglet, the bear, then the tree that contained the menacing lizard with the pointy shooter thing.

Leoric could practically hear the gears inside of its head turning as it thought of what it was going to do, and like a snapping spring its eyes bulged wide, maw opened, and it unleashed the most unholy of noises he’d ever heard.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

“Shit.”

Leoric jumped at the tree that Scritch was perched on and climbed fast, moving his big furry bottom in galloping grasps as he struggled to find handhold and purchase. The tree shook as the sow butted the tree and began to madly rear and hoof scratch at the tree.

“Scritch!? SCRIIITCH?” Leoric called up to her as she sighted down the shaft of the arbalest.

“Yeah?” She asked, watching.

“Are you going to kill it?” Leoric shouted.

“Why?” She asked.

“BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO KILL US,” Leoric shouted as he clutched tighter to the tree.

“But you’re going to ride it.”

“SCRITCH, DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT’S GOING TO LET ME RIDE IT?” Leoric shouted.

Scritch peered slowly down at the sow, studied it, tilted her head and looked back at Leoric.

“Maybe?” Scritch said as she looked back to Leoric.

“KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT,” Leoric shouted.

Scritch shot the arbalest, letting a twang sound out with a satisfying ‘thuck’ of sound.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

“I made it more mad,” Scritch said. Leoric looked down at the boar. A single bolt stuck threateningly up between its eyes, defiant.

“SCRITCH!?” Leoric shouted as he scrambled to catch his grasp.

She loaded another bolt, aimed, fired, and the same satisfying ‘thuck’ sounded.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Is it just madder?” He asked.

She nodded.

“One more shot, Scritch, come on!” Leoric pleaded. She loaded a bolt, aimed carefully and shot.

“Thuck”

Leoric winced, waiting.

“Thud.”

Leoric chanced a glance. The boar lay dead at their feet, slumped to its side. It had three bolts centered and struck right in the same spot on its head. It twitched.

“Is it dead?”

“Iunno,” She said before climbing down the tree.

“Wait! If you’re not sure it’s dead, don’t go down there!”

“I’ma poke it!”

“DON’T POKE THE BOAR.”