That night the final mother goes into labor, and armed with knowledge, it’s all rather routine. The other mother gave birth to, in chronological order we had two, three, one, two, four, one, and portable ultrasound indicated she’ll have a single puppy, joining the other twelve. That puts the average ‘litter size’ around two, though the sample size is too small to say anything conclusively.

The veterinarian arrives just in time, and after a lot of growling, the mother finally quiets down.

And it stays quiet, until she starts humming a tired, slightly nervous tune.

The hard part is over, so I peek inside. My heart drops.

“Is it…?”

The veterinarian doesn’t turn away from the wolfkin cradling her daughter.

“There’s nothing I can do.”

As if she understood, she stops her humming. Or rather, with the intelligence they’ve shown, she probably does understand, if not the words, then the meaning.

And the Den is filled with the bawling, not of a new life, but that of a grieving would-be mother.

The tragedy we had three days ago, when one of the four was born dead, has repeated itself, and while that couple were left with two sons and a daughter to shift their focus to, these two have no distractions.

I can only hope their companion, who will surely feel it, comes and helps them through this; it pains me so to see this. I don’t think this is a good time for me to try to help, though. They need time to process this.

Two days ago it took about five minutes before the parents, while still sad, had to be stopped from eating the stillborn and its placenta. On one hand, we shouldn’t interfere, but it was decided that it was a necessary evil to take and study them, to hopefully avoid it in the future.

After fifteen minutes we have made the decision to let them do as they wish, and the veterinarian packs up and leaves.

After forty minutes she has lost her voice, and only quiet sobbing remains. Several wolfkin, and a couple of the wolves have come, looked in for a minute or two, then left.

Someone shakes me awake.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

I must’ve nodded off, and a sweep of mana reveals the wolfkin to have left.

“Was it- is it your turn to keep watch?”

“Uh, yes?”

I stand up and look into the clinic. Nothing there, aside from the usual mess.

“Well, the last wolfkin gave birth. It was-”

I let out a long sigh. “Stillborn.”

“Oh. So… Am I still needed here?”

“I -yaawn- don’t think so. They- It’s best if we leave them alone for a while, I think.”

He looks a bit defeated as he leaves. Huuh. If he looks a bit defeated, then what about me? Well, I should probably go and get some proper sleep. It’s not like I can… I can’t do anything.

I stretch a bit and rub my eyes with my free arm, then flip to my side burrow my face into whatever part of Tåke this is, snuggling closer. That seems to wake her, but she makes no move to get up, so we share warmth like that until I’m fully awake and bored of just lying around.

Once up, I bring Tåke along to the wolfkin couple’s alcove. While not entirely empty -the wolfkin have taken to creature comforts like anyone else- they’re not there, so we go sniffing for them. Quite literally, actually, and Tåke picks up their scent first, taking us to the nursery.

The wolfkin are very communal in taking care of their young, and this room has somehow ended up as the place they stay most of the time. Might have something to do with the fact that it has the most blankets and such, and even some toys, mostly store-bought dog toys, but also some made by various den-members.

The couple in question look up at us when we enter, before turning their attention back to the mother of the quadruplets, and particularly one of her three surviving children, one of the males. They still seem a bit down, but they seem to be tackling it well enough, so I shouldn’t interrupt them.

I wonder though, are they adopting him? Considering that the pups will likely develop at a pace closer to humans than wolves it might be good to share the burden (though they already do that to some degree), but I also think it’d be a good bonding experience for the two families. The grieving wolfkin have a shared companion, too, while neither the mother, nor the currently absent father do.

Having or not having companions seem to have a profound effect; the wolfkin with the most contact with humans, ie. those with companions that visit often, are notably better at high level communication, be that complexity and abstraction of speech or social norms. They appear more intelligent too, but that’s probably a result of the former.

Either way, most of the wolfkin are socially adept enough that they could probably walk around the city just as well as any four-year old. In other words, best accompanies by a parent/companion, but could go without supervision for a minute or two. Now, the more advanced wolfkin are more like seven to ten-year olds, and with their ability to speak I think we might even want to encourage them to try socializing with people in the area.

Maybe have an excursion come summer; it’d be the opposite of how it’s usually like, going from the forest and lake and into the city. Hah!

Well, for now I’ll just keep an eye on them, and I really should find out their names. I’ll ask someone when we get around to do the naming ceremonies, I guess. We decided to do it for all the pups at once after a few weeks. That’ll be long enough for them to gain some sort of association. And we might have fewer to name by then.

Enough playing around with the pups for now. The adults seem to be coping well, so I don’t think I should actually do anything. I've been neglecting Tåke lately, so let's do whatever she wants.

Taking point in the arrow-shaped formation, I sniff a small tree that has almost been knocked over. We're still on track, but I wait for the rest of Tåke's pack to share what they find before following the trail in another direction. After a couple hours of first sniffing out a sign of the beast, followed by tracking it, the signs are fresh enough that we go from simply tracking, to stalking it. Better we find it first, than it us.

Sure enough, the trail is hotter and hotter, and when we hear an animal sound in the distance, I have everyone hold back and hunker down while I send a bird-puppet to look around. Indeed, there’s a four-legged monstrosity of a beast up ahead.

It’s huge, like, elephant sized, and with longer and thicker forelegs, it reminds me of a gorilla, but drawn by that guy who makes overly muscular comic characters. It’s green, though, blending fairly well with the spring leaves that are starting to come out in full force. Or it would, if it hadn’t eaten and/or knocked over everything around it. Is it a… herbivore?

If it’s a herbivore then it probably isn’t dange- actually, nevermind. Larger herbivores are some of the most deadly animals around. Mooses, hippos, and the like. To take down this thing… Don’t let it hit you, magic is probably a good idea, it doesn’t look like it can reach around to its back, hmm...

At first I suggest the wolves should try to take it down on their own, and I’ll step in if need be, but they refuse out of fear, so instead the fight starts when I drop onto its back, wicked talons digging into its flesh.

I immediately revert my wings to arms and grab on with significantly less wicked taloned hands, then start burning a crystal for mana, funneling all of it into its back, towards where the heart should be.

As expected, it rears up in an attempt to throw me off, but having changed my. As planned, the wolfkin use the distraction to spread out and surround it, but stay out of sight, for now.

It trashes around for surprisingly long time before wizening up and dropping to its side to crush me, but I just jump off and give the signal to the wolfkin.

I land next to one of them as they seemingly materialize from nothing (those spells are good!), grabbing my spear from her just as the beast stands back up, facing the other way.

That’s the wrong choice, and I leap towards it, stabbing at its left knee, before stepping back. Unsurprisingly, that gets its attention, but as it turns a mana spike slams into its rear, above the right leg.

“That makes you mad, huh?” I taunt, noting with satisfaction the fleshy sound that comes as I feel rather than see Tåke attack it from the other side with a sharpened stick.

I mean, it’s not just a stick; it has a few simple enchantments, and she’s strengthening it with magic, too. The idea of spears came from watching me, but the idea of using just wood, without a head, they came up with on their own, and the enhancements and enchantments came as a result of the mundane versions breaking too easily.

That means they’re not only tool users, but tool makers, which is one of the specific criteria listed in the current version of the laws regarding personhood and intelligence and all of that. Well, it’s not criteria as in you need them all, but it lists a number of specific examples that ‘strongly indicates higher intelligence’ and, in turn, shifts them towards personhood on the scale.

There’s the socio-cultural stuff too, which is being researched, but I tear my focus back to the now, staying alert as the beast takes attacks of both physical and magical nature from all sides.

Two of the wolves notice before me, and I dodge in reflex to what they share rather than actually recognizing that it’s about to charge, then turn around to face it.

Is this a boss battle? No, seriously, it fell over after its side crashed into a tree…

We reform in a crescent around it, with Tåke taking the center with me. As wounded as it is now, we want to leave it an opening; cornered rats and all that. It jumps out to strike at a male who got too close, but with a shield and by tugging him away, he gets to stand back up with no more than a tumble across the forest floor.

And that’s when the beast takes the hint and runs out of the nice big opening we made.

It’s persistence hunting time.

We follow it at a fairly leisurely pace, making sure we never lose track of it, and when we catch up, throw a few token attacks before letting it flee, again.

One of the wolfkin event reveals herself to be a shifter, giving herself wings and jumping and gliding to look down from above, while the rest jump-float-levitates along.

After several repetitions it decides to stand its ground rather than running, clearly tired. We just slowly surround it, still leaving an out, then charge up more powerful spells to strike at it. The wolfkin does so in groups of three, two, and Tåke, respectively, and I make my own spell, of course, easily forming spells just as strong as the group of three.

Tåke’s modified mana javelin narrowly misses the head, creating a gouge in the body behind it, then the duo’s assorted rocks and other forest detritus slams into it like a shotgun blast, before biting into the bloodied flesh like a swarm of angry hornets. The trio’s attack is invisible, but by the mana (and smell), it seems to burn the target in some manner.

It makes a pained roar, and my one-two punch slams into it. First the mana javelin hits its side, removing a large chunk of its hide and flesh alike, then the second spell follows suit.

Bound to a stone core, with two thin cones of hardened earth in from, the spell does some damage as the projectile hits. There’s a momentary pause before I explode the outer cone into its flesh, after which the second goes straight through a kidney or something. It, too, explodes, further jamming the shards of the previous one into the vulnerable insides.

By this point it staggers and is about to fall off, and that’s when I apply as much force as I can to the core, dragging it through the body, crushing at least one lung, up the neck, and when when the skull gives way it sails off into the distance, the sudden lack of resistance meaning I lose control of it.

The behemoth hits the ground, so very dead, and I stare at it, the lying pose thankfully hiding the worst of the gore. Hoooly… I don’t know. I don’t know! If anything, I feel like that’s more unholy than anything else…

“Eeeeewwwwwwww!”

The shout snaps me out of it, and I turn to female wolfkin, the same who handed me my spear; She’s covered in the stuff from the accidental cannonball. Eww indeed…

“Laaaars!” Tåke complains in that ‘mooooom!’ tone. “You made Trilli dirty!”

“I did-” I start. What did I-? I mean- That wasn’t-

“I’m sorry, Trilli. I- I should’ve thought about what I was gonna do a bit more…”

“Now I must wash!” She says with annoyance more than anything else.

Uhh, yeah, no shit. Sniff, sniff. Well, thankfully there’s none of that, but, well, it’s not pretty.

“Lars, she must use your shower.”

Tåke tries to sound stern, but, well, the body and voice of a teenager. I give a wordless acknowledgement. Letting her take a shower is the least I can do. Satisfied, Tåke addresses the pack.

“Everyone! Finish hunt now.”

They are surprisingly effective, and while Trilli (at Tåke’s suggestion), keep trying to rub the gore onto me, the rest of the pack prepare it, cutting off the mangled head and carefully removing the intestines while draining its blood.

On the way back home they take turns carrying the corpse, but refuse to let me do so, and Trilli manges to rub the gunk off on me with one running hug and one ambush from above. I’m conflicted; one one hand that’s pretty cute and childish, on the other hand now I also have to shower and wash my clothes…

The Den is happy for today’s meal, and only when they start tearing it apart it strikes me that maybe I should’ve at least photographed it for later. Before I mutilated it, at least. Ugh, it’s good I’ve gotten fairly used to handling corpses, otherwise I’d probably be sick. I really should’ve expected that applying massive force via the small ball would be… effective, once past its outer defences.

I have the three of us take a dip in the lake, clothes and all, but given the camera shutter sounds I hear on the way home, /r/EikeliSpotting should soon have some interesting conversations…

When we get home I bring the two furry friends to the bathroom before their curiosity makes even more mess I have to clean up, then strip us all and it’s into the shower. Clothes first, then I enter with Trilli to wash her squeaky clean. Tåke didn’t particularly need a shower, but why not, so I wash her too, and while they have fun with my magical hair drier, it’s finally my turn.

I polite ignore the way they stare at me and the associated parts of their conversation, especially when I temporarily revert to human for easier cleaning. Not that I get the whole picture with telepathy involved, and I don’t fully understand their language. Or their pack’s particular dialect of it, rather, the in-jokes, words, and such. I can communicate in the common parts of the language as well as any other born humans.

The clothes will take a little while to dry, so after I message Hilde that Trilli is here, we spend time lounging, lazing, grooming, and watching online videos. After about half an hour, and answering lots of questions about parts they didn’t understanding, Hilde replies with a simple ‘Can I come?’. ‘Sure.’