Chapter 13
Panic started to fill Natalie's mind. Was her place on fire? Were Bryden and the wolves okay? Frantically, she started trying to pack up camp as quickly as she could. While rushing around, Kali came out from the tent, and noticed Nat running around like a crazy person. 'Seem panicked. What wrong?'
"There is a good chance that the smoke over there is coming from my home, where I have people that I care and worry about. I need to get back and see if they are alright!" Natalie stated. Noticing the worry emanating from Nat, Kali quickly got the pups to work, running around and helping her quickly store things into the Soulscape. Thankfully nothing that was sitting around camp had a duplicate sitting in the space, so it was made extremely easy to get everything put away in record time. They were incredibly thorough, picking up and taking care of the smallest pieces of refuse. Though she was freaking out and worrying why there would be such a large plume of smoke coming from where she lived, Nat did not want to disrespect this park and the nature that it held. She had spent the last three years of her life to help keep the human influence on this land as minimal as possible. And she sure as hell wasn't going to start now.
Satisfied that there was no trace left of her camping there aside from the disturbed ground and a couple missing trees, she started tracing her path back towards civilization. Sadly, she could not rush this first part of the journey, as the height of the peaks and cliffs that she passed were treacherous should anyone take them for granted. Her getting herself hurt by rushing back would not help anyone. If anything, it would only add to the issues that people were probably already dealing with. They most likely wouldn't have time to go into the brush to look for someone, even if they notice her flare heading off into the sky.
While she was heading back to Waterton, Kali decided to try to distract her worried mind and try and help her relax a bit. 'Who people you care about?' While the language was still a work in progress, Natalie could both understand the intention and appreciate the speed at which Kali seemed to be picking it up.
Humouring the big wolf inside of her, Natalie decided to explain all about her life back in town. However, she chose to do it mentally as she would need to save her breath for when she ran down the path back to town. 'Well, the only human I care about back there is Bryden. He is my boss, and a great man. I guess the equivalent as you would see it as is that he is the alpha of my pack, but I am his second in command. He has helped me so much and taught me a shit ton about working in nature, for nature.'
'Alpha Bryden, mate with him?' Kali asked her, a inquisitive tone taking to her voice.
'What? No, no. He is sweet, however I see him more as a role model and instructor. Not in any kind of romantic way. He has just earned my respect many times and even saved my life once. It was when I had just started working under him, and I wanted to spend a day just having a meal out in the woods, and just enjoy the wild. Well, a brown bear smelled my food, and decided he wanted a piece. Bryden arrived just in time, and helped me get away without any issues. He didn't even yell or get mad at me for it, he was just worried whether or not I was okay. I really hope he is okay.
Other than him, there are these other wolves that I am close to. They are gray wolves like you and your pups, but they got sick with the rest of their pack. Sadly, we were not fast enough to save their even most of their pack, and they are all that is left.' Natalie finished, feeling sadder now after thinking about the terrible loss those wolves have had, and hoping that nothing happened to them. She did not want them to lose anymore than they already have.
'Maybe they join your pack?' Kali suggested, all for getting new friends for her pups to play with. Especially if any of these wolves turned out to be pups themselves, then they could bounce their energy off each other. She did not inquire about this however, as she wanted Nat's sadness to go away sooner. Asking more questions about them wouldn't help with that right now.
As Natalie finally descended down from the final peak she had to cross and neared the path, she heard a sound that seemed angry, violent, and wrong. She slowed down to a crawl immediately, and slowly worked her way forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. As she got closer, she noticed that the brush around her was beaten down, and there were little blood splatters here and there. As she came around one tree, she almost screamed in fright as she came face to face with a crumpled body leaning against the tree.
Upon closer investigation, it had to have been no taller than three feet tall, was green from head to toe, and seemed utterly barbaric. It's head was caved in with a very clear hoof print. It seemed to belong to a mid-age elk, probably female going by the size and shape. Black blood was oozing out of its wounds, but even creepier was a black smoke that was coming off the skin of the little corpse. Almost as if the body was evaporating. Thanks to her nerd of a mother, and her almost religious following of all things fantasy, Natalie assumed that this could be nothing other than a goblin. What were they doing here, on Earth?
Continuing onto the path without bothering with the disturbing monster corpse, she finally snuck up to the edge of the treeline. What she saw there was disturbing. There was another goblin corpse crushed into the ground. Its black blood oozing into the ground. An elk, with its guts opened up was laying on the ground nearby, black blood on two of its hoofs, one front and one rear hoof. And standing over top the corpse of the elk were three goblins, very much alive and arguing. Probably about who gets to eat what she assumed. That however did not matter to her, as she was so revolted at the sight of them that she only had one thought on her mind. That the only good kind of goblin, was a dead one.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times.