Randy sat on his haunches in the thick undergrowth of the forest at the river's edge staring across the water at the balcony of the large house on the opposite bank. It was his favorite place to be and he often found himself back here with no clear memory of how he had gotten here. He had spent most of the mild winter just running in the woods all along the long river, hunting for small animals whenever he thought of it or scrounging food from any conveniently unsecured garbage can if he was desperately hungry.

He no longer cared what anyone would think of him; the only person whose opinion had mattered to him, he had been forced to betray. Astyr was as lost to him as his own self-respect.

Yet he would find himself back here watching her from afar as she went about her daily activities, safe from discovery as he crouched behind the bushes and saplings that crowded the forest floor; unable to stay away from her.

The first couple of months that he had lived as a wolf since the night of the Homecoming dance had been mind-numbingly wild for him, completely devoid of care or responsibility or thought. He had run as far as he could for as long as he could with no concern for himself or his surroundings, simply following the path of the river as it snaked its way north through the rough landscape. He had come to find himself in a near-death state at the edge of the great boggy swamp that fed the mighty river. His fur was matted, snarled with twigs, and had lost its sheen while his skin hung loosely over the now-prominent bones of his body.

He had barely had the energy to keep himself alive; a normal wolf would have been dead long before, but Randy had laid down in the sun and the small amount of energy he had absorbed from that had helped him survive to find a meal.

What had really kept him going, though, was the discovery of a familiar scent.

Randy had been roaming for so long that he had lost track of how long it had been when he smelled a scent crossing his path that raised his hackles and turned his stomach.

Lucky.

Randy didn't know where he was at the time but he knew that his great-grandfather wouldn't be anywhere nearby unless he was planning to make trouble for someone; and Randy knew all too well who Lucky's target was at the moment.

He put his nose to the ground and after figuring out which direction had the fresher trail, followed it for over two weeks until he found himself at a crumbling old house in the middle of nowhere. There were no lights and the place was clearly uninhabited but Randy sat down and waited patiently to see what was going on.

After an hour or so, Lucky came out of the decrepit structure and moved off into the forest without looking back or checking the area. When Randy was sure that he was gone for good, he crept in to see what had brought the evil old man way out here.

The inside of the house was empty except for a thick smell of decay and mold that clung tightly to the ancient beams like a protective barrier. Randy spent a few minutes in the entryway trying to see what Lucky had been doing when he noticed that the dust on the floor had a clear path trampled through it. It wasn't just one set of footprints, it looked like a couple of different people had walked through here on a regular basis so Randy wasn't too worried about leaving his footprints behind. He followed the path through the house until it ended abruptly against a wall in the deserted kitchen.

Randy could smell that the scent of the people who had walked through the house continued past the flimsy barrier that was covered in peeling, faded paint, but he had no idea how to move the wall without leaving evidence behind. He carefully checked the footprints in the dust but there were none that went off the clearly defined path so he put his nose to the wall and started checking to see where Lucky had put his hands.

As he reared up on his hind legs and pressed his front paws against the wall for support, the wood panel in front of him moved inward and Randy almost fell on his face before he caught his balance and landed hard on the top stair of the dark, wooden staircase that led down from the empty kitchen.

He was much better adapted for seeing in the dark than regular canines so he cautiously made his way down, stopping at every step to reassess the situation and to try and gather clues to his surroundings from the smells around him.

The smells were mostly just the earthy scent of long-used underground passages mixed with the sickening odor of Lucky and the slightly faded scent of an unknown person who had been carrying some kind of meaty food. Randy inhaled deeply to try and learn more about the mysterious other person; the faint trace of ozone that he detected told him that it wasn't a human, probably an Aesir or Vanir judging by the potency of it, but it had been a few days since the smell had been refreshed so it was hard to tell for sure.

When Randy finally got to the end of the steps, he was surprised to find stone beneath his paw instead of the dirt that he had expected. He stood still and let his senses adjust to the dark surroundings, but it was too dark for even his abnormally strong vision to be of much use. He allowed his sense of smell to take over and lead him to the path that his great-grandfather had taken.

He moved slowly, step by step, pausing to check for danger or changes in the space around him before going any further to the unknowable end. It took him almost half an hour to move twenty paces across the pitch-black chamber before he sensed something different.

There was more stone in front of his face. He wouldn't have known about it if it weren't for the scent of Lucky's hand close by to the right. He slowed his already glacial pace and carefully investigated.

The stone right in front of him was smooth and he pressed his nose up against it and moved slowly towards the scent. After a foot or so, he felt a ridge that ran up and down. He could still smell Lucky's scent further away so he carefully nosed his way over the ridge and moved to the place that the old man had touched. When he got to the place where the smell was the strongest, he encountered a small square of plastic that had a strong tang of electricity behind it. Randy almost barked out a laugh when he realized it was a light switch but he knew Lucky well enough to know that he could still be in serious danger.

He checked to make sure that there were no sounds or scents nearby before using his nose to flip the switch up.

A weak, orange glow filled the space and Randy closed his eyes from the sudden glare. He reopened them slowly and took in the sight of the small room that he had just crossed. The passage from the wooden stairs to the wall with the light switch was only about a yard across and seemed to have been carved from the thick bedrock beneath the rickety house. The vertical ridge in the wall was actually the frame of a heavy-looking stone door that had a thick metal flap at the bottom that was locked with a big, shiny padlock and a small square window set just above center that was covered with a thick metal mesh.

Randy jumped up on his hind legs to peer through the window and had to stare for several minutes to let his vision adjust to the murky darkness beyond the door. The faint glow that seeped into the small chamber barely penetrated deeply enough to show the edges of the room but Randy could just make out against the opposite wall a bare stone shelf cut into the rock that had a skeletally thin old woman on it.

She was dressed in a ragged shift that was a dingy gray color that matched her long, unkempt hair. It was laying in thick, matted clumps around her head as she lay facing the opposite wall, seemingly not caring about the light coming into her small room. Randy gave a small whine and the woman slowly turned in surprise to the door.

As soon as Randy saw her face, with its large silver eyes, he knew without a doubt who he was looking at. He dropped to the ground in shock and started barking loudly in alarm while trying futilely to claw his way through the stone door.

"Shhh!" The frail lady on the other side hissed weakly at him. "You don't want them to catch you here."

Randy immediately obeyed and stopped making noise. He stood still and listened carefully to make sure there were no sounds coming.

Randy was at a disadvantage because he didn't have enough energy left to change back to human form so he definitely didn't want to be caught by Lucky or anyone else down here.

He turned back to the door and jumped up to press his muzzle against the mesh covering the small window, perhaps the woman would understand that he could only offer her this small comfort.

She gave a small, raspy laugh at the sight of the large wolf behaving like a family pet.

"It's okay, boy." She said to him quietly. "There isn't anything you can do for me. It makes me so glad to see a friendly face after all these years, but you have to get out of here. Do you understand me?"

Randy gave a low whine. The last thing he wanted to do was leave her here in this lonely dungeon to be forgotten about, but she was right.

"Don't come back again." She ordered firmly. "They'll smell your scent and get mad. If you want to protect me, get as far away as you can and stay there."

He whined in sadness but he knew he would obey. The last thing he wanted was to make her life any worse than it already was. He stuck his tongue out and tried to lick her fingers that were gripping the metal mesh in a gesture of comfort and farewell before turning and nosing the light switch off and making his way up to the kitchen and out of the crumbling old house that hid the painful secret of her imprisonment.

After that, he had traveled in a long and winding arc back to where he knew Astyr was living.

He watched her in secret as she worked with the others to learn about her powers and perfect her fighting skills. He got a thrill every time he saw her pale blonde hair flash on the balcony and he felt giddy whenever he saw her beat one of the obnoxious boys in mock combat. If wolves could laugh, Randy would have been rolling on the ground.

While others patrolled around the house and the network of safety they were trying to create for Astyr closed up tightly, Randy kept his own vigil. He knew Lucky wouldn't do anything until he felt the moment was right, and Randy knew better than anyone that Lucky's idea of right would mean the most trouble possible. So Randy kept track of every scent trail that came anywhere close to the mansion where she was living, waiting for the day he knew Lucky would show his face.

Randy could do nothing to erase what he had done before, and it tore at his heart to think of how he had hurt Astyr; but he swore to himself that he would give up his last breath if it would keep her safe.

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