𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳 𝚂𝙾 𝙲𝙾𝙻𝙳 ‎ ‎ ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ

Part One Epilogue

The gray furred wolf strolled down the hallways of the school, doing his best to keep his gaze forward. Walking beside of him were dozens of human students. The wolf kept his hands under the straps of his backpack, tuning out all the gossip being spoken among his peers as he passed by.

The wolf exits out the doors of a building of the school and begins to walk across the courtyard and towards the doors of the cafeteria. Scattered around the courtyard, cliques gossip and eat their lunch. From across the way, a female fox spots the wolf as he strolled. Her human friends squabble away about different boys and MTV music videos they watched the previous night next to her as she watched him. She kept his gaze on the wolf as he entered the cafeteria.

The wolf gazes around the grand cafeteria. Along the far wall, students stand in line waiting for their share of the days meal. Students sat at the tables scattered around, the indistinct chatter filling the wolf's ears. After a moment of searching, he finds a lone mixed racial human standing at the end of the line. The wolf smiles and makes his way over to the human, students still gossiping as he walked by. Eventually, the wolf approaches the boy as the boy turned his gaze to the wolf, a smile running across his face.

"Look who decided to show up." The boy chuckles, stuffing his hands into his bomber jacket.

"Sorry, Ben. I got held up by Mr. Garrison with his usual after class lecture for me." The wolf responds, joining his friend in the line.

"Oh yeah? What was it this time, knowing too much?" Ben asks.

"As usual." The wolf responds, shrugging his shoulders.

The two continue to converse as they inched slowly forward in the line. Before long, the two receive their trays and queue out of the lunch line, heading back towards the courtyard doors.

"You know, I think that fox girl in period four likes you." The wolf says, looking over to Ben.

"Oh, come on. She asked to borrow a pencil. Doesn't mean she likes me." Ben says, rolling his eyes.

"Nah, man. It is in the eyes. When you handed her that pencil, it was like fireworks." The wolf says, waving his hand to the side out in front of him.

Ben chuckles. "You are so full of it, man."

The two then exit out the courtyard doors and found themselves a spot in the shade along the side of the cafeteria building. They continued to talk as they ate.

"Do you even like her?" The wolf asks, placing a plastic spoon into his maw.

Ben scoffs. "I mean, she seems cool."

The wolf chuckles, swallowing his food. "I can read you like a book. I know you do not care about the outside. You have always gravitated towards girls who have a little more on the inside."

"I mean, outside of the whole pencil thing, we've only said like 3 or 4 sentences to each other." Ben says, placing his fork into his mouth.

"Sometimes that is all it takes for people." The wolf replies.

Then, all of a sudden, shadows appear in front of the two.

"Hey, Russki." A voice says. Ben and the wolf look up to see a trio of students.

"Eating your lunch in the dark, huh?" The center student says, the other two snickering.

The wolf says nothing, keeping his gaze down to his tray.

"Hey, why don't you beat it, Lawson?" Ben says, staring up to the trio.

"Oooh!" The students say sarcastically in unison. "What are you gonna do?" The center boy asks. "Have your pet dog sic me?"

The other two chuckle out.

"We are just trying to eat our lunch, Lawson. Don't you have better things to do than annoy people?" Ben says, placing his tray on the concrete.

"People? As far as I'm concerned, neither of you two are people." Lawson says, crossing his arms.

"That's enough, Lawson." Ben stands up. The wolf looks up to Benjamin as he stood up.

"Look at the poor little boy, protecting his little Lassie." Lawson says, the other two laughing.

The female fox watched the altercation from a far.

"You are a racist piece of shit, Lawson." Ben says, his brow furrowing. Lawson and his two posse members give menacing glares to Ben.

"Say that again." Lawson says, his eye quivering.

"Racist. Piece. Of shit." Ben says, enunciating.

Then, all of a sudden, a fist slams into Ben's chest, causing Ben to stumble back into the wall.

"Ben!" The wolf cries out, scooting over to his friend as he slid down the wall, gasping for air.

"You watch your fucking mouth. You are a traitor on top of you being a waste of life, Benjamin. Keep hanging around that mutt and you will end up in a ditch somewhere, and this dog will bury your bones." Lawson says, the other two high fiving the boy named Lawson as they strolled off, snickering amongst themselves. 

The female fox stands up from her seat and walks across the courtyard, her friends not even noticing she was gone.

"You didn't have to do that, Ben." The wolf says, placing his hand on Benjamin's shoulder.

Benjamin coughs, trying to recapture his breath. "I, I know. I wasn't just gonna let, him, talk to you that, way, Volk." Ben says, coughing through his words.

"Are you okay?" A female voice says. Ben and Volk look up to the voice, seeing a female anthro fox, kneeling down beside Ben as she placed her hand upon his chest.

Ben and the female fox stare into each other's eyes for a moment, Volk smirking to himself.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine." Ben replies, still looking to the fox.

"I saw the whole thing... You are really brave." The fox says with a warm smile.

Volk then clears his throat, nudging Ben's arm. Ben snaps out of the stare, shaking his head. "I, uh, never learned your name, by the way." He asks the fox, still gazing deeply at her.

She giggled softly. "It's Amaria."