"What's the plan then?" she asked.
"I don't know, you tell me. You're smarter than I am anyway." I replied
"Don't be silly, you're smart too. But you're right; I probably do have more experience in plan-making. So, step one: brainstorm. What are some choices we can use, any choice at all."
"Run away." I suggested.
"Eliminate them." She said rather casually for a suggestion of murder.
"Hide from them until they go and look for me." I said.
"Okay, we have three good ideas. Now we can put them in time order, longest to shortest." She said, making a shape in the dirt. "This one here," she said pointing to a circular shape, "represents run away. This one," she said drawing a square-ish shape to the left of it, "represents eliminate them and this one," she said drawing a wavy line to the right of the circle, "means hide until they leave. Now, which one do you know we or you can't or won't do?" she asked. I dragged my paw through the square.
"I refuse to murder them directly." I said, "And besides, we can turn them in to the pack we find. It would be easy for them to deal with it."
"Hold on a second Silv. We don't even have an idea of where the nearest pack is. The one I came from is moons of constant travel from here to there. Anyway, the pack will think we are delusional tenderfeet who got really, really lost. That's why further planning is needed but we can't move on until we figure out what strategy of evasion we are going to take," she said, working herself up, "so step back a moon and work on the first step, then we can work on the further minutia of the plan. Here is a good tip that I learned from a nice teacher of mine. No matter how small or soon, you never assume. So don't assume were going to find a pack that would even care if a wolf was enslaving pups from a different pack and territory, because who knows how many territories were going to pass through? None, fifteen? We don't know so don't assume!" she said finishing with a gasp, for she hadn't had a breath through her whole lecture. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and immediately dropped to the ground in an involuntary submission posture. Her sudden aggression at the end had surprised me, but I stood up almost instantly.
"Sorry. That was unkind of me." She whimpered, lowering her head.
"It wasn't your fault," I said, "I'm the one who made a mistake." An awkward silence befell her root hollow. Our gazes shifted from one side of the hollow, to the other, then to the floor. "So, now we have two options. Which one do you prefer?" she asked
I contemplated it for a moment. "Run. Run and leave these idiots behind." I said.
"Okay, so the full plan in order is: 1) Wait until nightfall and come to the river, making sure to coat yourself in scat to reduce your smell.
2) Walk in the river until daybreak as to not leave our scent behind
3) Keep on following the river until it turns a different direction in which case we continue forward." River said. I nodded in agreement. It was a simple plan, easy to follow, difficult to mess up. "When shall we do it?" I asked.
"In two moons time. If you can, grab some satchels and provisions. We'll need them, and I have some extra supplies here, so don't waste your time digging through their collection, alright?"
"Sounds good." I said looking off into the distance. "Perhaps we could make a fake scent trail that would lead them into a trap, like a covered pit." I suggested. "Then they couldn't follow us even if they wanted to."
"Good idea." She said, "Say, if you didn't come back to them by sunrise, would they come looking for you?" River asked.
"Probably, yes." I said curiously. What was she suggesting?
"Well, we could lay the scent trail tonight, leading them across the river and to the pit. Then you could climb a tree, and travel via the branches for a while until you reach the river. Then you could drop down to the ground and we could carry out our plan from there, as long as they won't follow you up the tree." She said.
"Trust me, they won't." I assured her. They're too lazy to even attempt, I added silently "Let's do it soon" I said. "I have another idea. While they're gone, you can sneak in and gather the supplies yourself, I'll be too busy laying the scent trail. I'll show you where the cave is tonight. They always keep an eye out for me before they go to sleep, or so they say, at least. If you can be at where we first met by moonhigh, I can sneak out while they're asleep, and give you a look around."
"That's a good idea, but we're going to have to dig the pit first. That will take us a few moons, three or four probably." River said.
"Let's get to work then, if we're going to meet our deadline."
YOU ARE READING
The Wolves of the Light- An Old, Garbage Fanfiction
Fanfiction(I don't think that this fever dream deserves a plot synopses.) Silver didn't know who he was or how he got there, but nonetheless was found in the middle of the woods by Spring and Pine. (Oh, lordy, those names.) The two adult wolves raised Silver...
