Author's note: Sorry for the delay

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I knew, as soon as I saw him, this old guy would be annoying. Why did he have to find me. Is this Fate's fault? Mother says Fate makes things happen, and that she's a b-. My mother always looks at me and stops talking before she finishes the word, but I can tell it's an insult that means she's annoying. Like this old guy. I focus on the old guy again. He has stood up and is slowly walking this way. The wolves are growling and getting ready to fight, but I know that isn't a good idea. I raise my hand and turn my palm down, the wolves lay down as I asked. Their fur is still bristling and a growl is ready in their throats. The old man seems surprised that they listened to me. I take a few steps forward, putting myself between him and my pack. I glare at him, waiting for him to state his intentions. Wait...what? I can't understand him. He's using one of those spoken languages. Mother told me about those, but hasn't taught me any yet. He's just droning on. I just stare at him with a confused look: my ears are laid back, my eyebrows are raised, my hands are on my hips, my mouth is slightly open, and my head is cocked to the side. He takes a few minutes to notice that I have no idea what he is saying, bipedals are kind of dumb aren't they. He tries speaking slower, and when that doesn't work he looks dumbfounded. It's a silly look. *yawn* Well, he doesn't seem hostile and since we can't communicate I might as well go back to sleep. I turn around, swishing my tail, and signal the wolves to follow me. Laughs looks back at the old man, as we leave, and starts snickering. We all curl up together and go back to sleep.

.....

Geh, the old man is still here. When I woke up he was waiting for me outside the cave. The wolves have no idea what to do about him, neither do I. He tries talking to me again, and this time I look at him like he's an idiot. He probably is one, since it's obvious I didn't understand him yesterday. I've decided that I should just ignore him. I take the wolves back to the training we were doing yesterday with the rabbits. The old guy follows us and watches as we train. We head to the deer area for lunch, and he still tries to follow. I growl to make him stop, and he does. I smile and cheerfully head into the forest, tail waving. Once all the wolves have a deer I have them bring it back to eat by the old guy. I'm doing this because he wanted to follow, but let us hunt alone. He isn't hostile, but I don't want to anger him, just to be safe. When he see us he's surprised, but smiles. I made the right choice. As we go back to the cave he walks beside me, talking the whole time. I listen because I need to learn the language, so that I can tell him to get lost. When we reach the cave the wolves and train our second energy. The old guy uuwoah, and seems surprised and impressed. He starts talking at me even more, until I glare at him. He settles down and seems apologeti. He watches us as we train.

.....

The old guy follows us around for a week before he leaves. I still have no idea what he wanted. He watched me more then the wolves, and continued talking to me. Judging from his tone he was asking me a lot of questions. That old guy doesn't know when to quite. At least he's gone. I thought.

After he left we started training in the second ring. Our first opponents were gross, green bipedals, they smelt disgusting. They were weak, but they showed me how weapons are used. Weapons extend your reach and add damage from their hardness or sharpness. I can see how they are useful.

There were slimy glob things before them, but they were really weird. I didn't like touching them at all. They also tried to eat you if you touch, it burns. We know that because Laughs shoved his face in one of them. He grabbed the ball in the middle of it and pulled it out as the pain drove him off. Light grabbed Laughs and threw him a nearby river, that helped with the burning. When the ball came out of it the glob collapsed and disappeared. I liked the ball and it was really sweet, none of the wolves liked it though so I ate it by myself. We decided that the globs weren't worth fighting. The second monsters we fought looked like the green bipedals got a little bigger. They were smarter and used their weapons better. The wolves and I really had to work together. After that were even bigger, ugly, green bipedals. They were smart than the first ones, but dumber than the second ones. It was like fighting boar again. All of this took three months, one month for each group. They smelt horrible, so we killed all of them.

.....

A few days after we finished killing all of the biggest green bipedals the old man came back. I had hoped that he was gone forever, but I thought that wouldn't be what happens. He keeps talking to me. This time he has a stick and a book with blank pages. My mother had a lot of books, and I know what they are, but I don't know how to read. She said she'd teach me after I learned spoken languages. The old guy uses the stick to make marks on the paper. He shows me them and I look at him funny. What are they supposed to be? He looks disappointed. I makes a thinking pose for a bit and then looks like he has an idea. He scribbles something else in the book and picks a flower. He shows me the markings and the flower together. Are those markings suppose to look like the flower? He must have seen understanding on my face, because he starts scribbling again. This time it's suppose to be a wolve. He seems relieved that I understand. He puts the book in the bag on his back. He shows the flower again.

"******"

I he shoves the flower at me and says it a few more times. So I repeat the sound he made. He gets excited and points at a wolf.

"****"

I think I know what he's doing. He's trying to teach me spoken language. I start repeating what he says, trying to remember what the sounds mean. This is fun. I tell the wolves to train by themselves for the day and stay with the old guy trying to remember what he says. He's happy and so am I. I still think he's annoying though.