"The faery castle has been stormed!

It never happened before, no sane being would attack the faery.

It's just insane, it would never work. We cannot die, our personal domains are inviolable. Anything worth stealing is secure inside our domains so, why would someone invade our castle?

To flee!

But first we need to talk about the dragon in the room, in the castle?

Mmmh, we need to talk about the dragon. Not any dragon, The Dragon, the first one. Mother's pet.

Mother is creating new faries from time to time. Her pet saw her do it times and times again.

He? She? It? The Dragon just wants to copy Mother so... new draconic races are being born."

-Bee May, the faery of knowledge

"The little draco-bastards are just SO CUTE!"

Little Wolf sat on a slow moving cart, he was bored. "I'm boooored." The soldiers knew that he was bored, he made sure to keep them well informed. John the scout, the leader of this expedition? Mission? Journey? The leader. The leader brought his horse near the cart.

"We left the fort behind five hours ago, should it not be the time to start scouting?"

"Oh? But I am scouting."

"You are sitting."

"I'll show you!" Little Wolf started moving his head and looking at the forest on both sides, sniffing the air from time to time. "There!" He pointed to the left. "Four hundred meters in that direction, two stags are butting horns." The two male droppers ears perked up, they looked pleadingly to Little Wolf and he nodded smartly. They rushed inside the forest to the relief of the horses and mules that were part of the caravan, the wild beasts presence terrorized the poor creatures but they knew that getting away was impossible so, they were desperately obeying every order of their handlers and hoping to not end up as dropper meal.

"That's... helpful. I hoped on a more assessable type of scouting."

"Mmh sure, you want to skip lunch and just stop for dinner right?"

"Yes, those are the marching orders. Walk with the light and rest with the darkness."

"Well then there!" Little Wolf pointed to the right this time. "Two hundred fifty, three hundred? Meters that way, maybe a little imprecise this time, sorry. There are so many new sounds and smells, it's hard to focus."

"What is there?" John asked not really amused, he was no babysitter,he had responsabilities. He did not want to play with Little Wolf, he really wanted to make a real scouting team and get some fresh information, just to keep the caravan safe. Orders are orders and he will always obey, direct orders. On the field, a leader needs to make decisions based on the informations known to them. Sometimes it's necessary to ignore orders if they are made with incomplete informations and give the right orders. It's for the survivals of their subordinates.

"From the smell a boar, it's big and old too, it's moving. I think he's going towards the brook that way, I can hear water around four hundred meters ahead."

"Are you sure?" John asked with a raised brow, if that was true getting some extra supplies would be good for the morale and fresh meat is always appreciated.

Little Wolf sniffed the air again, "yes, the boar is definetly going towards the brook."

"Sure, let's see..." John looked around and called a team of five scouts he worked with a lot. "Tom, I want your group over there, four hundred meters more or less. There will be water and a boar, use the three banger and two spears formation. I want fresh meat for tonight."

"Yes sir! Come on brothers! The heart is mine."

Three men took metal shields, probably iron from the smell, ropes and long daggers. The remaining two started undressing, the left anything that could weight them down behind, they only took two long spears from the weapons cart, they were too long and unwieldy to be used on the woody terrain.

Little Wolf watched them so curiously John had to ask him, "have you never seen a boar hunting party?"

"Oh, we do hunt boars in the village but we usually use a spear wall to isolate them and father, the First Hunter kills them with a single spear thrust."

"You see, the banger will surround the boar and bang on the shield to move it on a better position for the kill. The two spear men will use the long spears to hold the boar at bay, if they get the opportunity they will stab the front of the boar and place the spears butt to the ground, use the ground itself to stop the boar from moving. They are lightly dressed so that if the boar decides to charge them they will have more chances to dodge. After the boar is in the kill zone the bangers, and the spearmen if they found the opportunity to immobilize the boar, will use the ropes to tie the legs of the hairy pig. When they are sure there is no danger for any of them, Tom will cut the boar's troath with his long dagger. It's a lot of work and you need a good teamwork but it's really safe once you get the hang of it. If the boar is really there."

"It is there! You will see, your men are going too far but they will find it, both are walking towards the water."

"So you say, if you are scouting with your superior senses, how can you be bored? Should you not lose focus? I can arrange for a scouting vanguard, I don't want to be caught by surprise."

Little Wolf shrugged, "focusing on hearing and smelling was a little harder than usual, I'm used to focus while still. Moving while focusing made me woozy, I felt things far away and my body moved while I was not willing it to move, it was a little confusing. But I got used to it."

"You got used to it."

"Yeah! I'm a fast learner!" Little Wolf said with pride.

"You still did not answer why you are bored."

"I told you though!" He sighed, "I had to focus at the start, then I got used. Now I know everything that's happening around us with almost no effort."

John raised an eyebrow, "You just kn-" "-ow everything by heart!" Interrupted the best scout of the Hardwood Forest.

"Sure, I'll bite. What are my men doing?"

"You should not bite without reason. Your men have found the boar and they are surrounding it, they should start bainging right..."

"Right?"

"... NOW!"

John strained his hearing and... he heard nothing.

"You are wasting my time, I'll prepare a scouting team, we are not safe like this."

"The carts make noises, your horse makes noises, the tree branches that move with the wind make noise, you want to hear a banging sound that is over five hundred meters that way?"

"Didn't you say that the boar was four hundred meters away?"

"I said it was moving, we moved too and your men walked away from it so they had to make a bigger circle to surround it."

"You don't sound really trustworthy right now."

"I never lie! Mother taught me that lies are bad!" But Kitty taught him that omissions are not lies.

"No matter, we will know when they come back in a while."

Almost one hour later the four scouts and Tom came back with a sack made of boar skin. They cleaned the boar near the brook and brought back only the meat and the usable parts, Tom's mouth was covered in blood. He unmistakably ate the heart of the boar fresh from the body.

"See! I was not telling lies!"

"Ok,ok, you are not a liar. Report to me anything, any sound, any smell. I want to know every single thing that you perceive, I need these informations to guide and protect my men."

"We just need to follow the road, there will be no dangers. The droppers will keep them away."

"Droppers? The two that are running around scaring our mounts?"

"Yes, those droppers!" And the other fifty that are in the trees around the caravan, keeping an eye on it. He was a little sad, when Fianna and Sidon left they were guarded by over hundred droppers. It was kinda fair that he only got half, they were two... he sure missed his family, they were just gone for a little but for him was a lot already. Little Wolf felt a little... alone. At least he had the two droppers, Mira did not count.

"They are able to keep lesser predators away but, what about the bandits?"

"I will tell you about any human that gets close to the caravan. I'm still bored, what do you do when you are bored?"

"Mmh, I read usually. Do you want to borrow a book of mine?"

"What does read mean?"

"Do you know about writing and reading?"

"Oh! I know! The thing where you draw stuff but it does not look like what you are drawing?"

"What?"

Little Wolf jumped upwards, he caught a branch that was about ten meters from the ground and used his nails to cut through it. He landed perfectly on his seat even while the cart was moving forward, he used the thick branch as a board and started drawing with his nail. Little Wolf was really focusing hard, he even kept his tongue out on the side of his mouth, it helped when he was drawing!

"Like this," he showed John a branch with a cute dog drawing, it had its ears a little to the sides and his mouth was open as if barking.

"It's a drawing."

"It's me! Little Wolf!"

"It's a drawing, not your name." John took the branch and cut a piece of it with his dagger, he always had a dagger on his side or on his boot, and then incided the words 'Little Wolf' on it. "See, this is writing, it's much faster and anyone can write, you don't need to be good at drawing."

"So, this drawing and the one you made both mean me?" He asked looking back and forth from the drawing to the words.

"Yes, drawing is good when you want to hide a message in the sketch, words... you can write as big or as small as you want. The meaning will always be the same, we use words to comunicate with people far away, to teach, to spread knowledge, to give informations."

"Ok, you convinced me. Teach me how to draw words and how to read them!"