The Wolves

Realising the jig is up, Octavia quickly turns and dashes back towards the cabin as fast as she can. Given she only learnt how to move properly a short while ago, she has yet to reach what could be seen as sprinting for a lamia. But even with this handicap, she does have quite a head start on the Wolves.

As she speeds away, the sound of multiple paws hitting dirt can be heard behind her, along with angry snarls and the occasional growl.

Making her way down the narrow pathway, the wolves almost butt heads as they enter and must run single file to get through. Doing this, with the speed and the circumstances, both parties end up with scratches all over their bodies racing down the path.

*Huff* *Huff* "Really missing Earth at this point!" She shouts to no one as she pants away barrelling back to where she stated. "Also thought it would be some time before I came back to this cabin."

Reaching the rear of the cabin, she spots a shovel leaning against the building, slightly hidden in an alcove, something she missed at the start of the journey.

"Must. Get. Weapon."

Diverging from her current course of heading to the door, she nears the back of the building, and she reaches out to grab the shovel.

"Ahh." She cries out in shock at what happens, almost losing a hand as one of the wolves jumps towards where she was reaching. This ends with the wolf's teeth almost scratching her skin and it crashing into the building and rolling to the floor, anger evident in its features as it tries to upright its self.

Giving up on the idea of having a shovel to help her fend off the wolves, given that one of the said wolves is currently trying to right itself on top of the weapon, she continues in the opposite direction and heads around to the side of the building.

"Almost there, almost there."

As she reaches the next corner, she receives a strange feeling in her tail, which is followed by the sight of a wolf rolling past her right.

"What?"

Putting aside the odd feeling she makes her way around the corner and reaches the door, dashing inside. After a quick scan of the room and she heads to furniture, grabbing the table and pushing it up against the door, just as one of the wolves collides with it, almost making its way inside.

*Huff**Huff*. "That was a close one."

Backing away from the table, she learns and becomes eternally grateful for how sturdy it is, as a wolf takes another charge at the door, barely dislodging the item of furniture.

"Good, that should hold for a while." Noting the current situation as she looks around trying to figure out what to do next.

A few moments later, she hears scratching and a growl at the rear of the building, quickly turning to the noise. Thankfully, there doesn't appear to be any damage visible from inside the cabin, meaning its likely one of the wolfs is trying to find another way inside, given that the one at the front is stopped by the barricaded door.

"I hate this world already and I've only been her for a few hours!" she cries out to whatever deity can hear her.

Taking a deep breath, Octavia calms herself down. Looking around she can still hear the wolves in the same locations, one at the door prowling around and the other at the rear trying to claw its way in.

"Right, I need a plan. How do I deal with this? Think Octavia, think."

Looking down she takes out the knife from her makeshift belt and holds it at the ready.

"Really wish I had a sword or some magic, not just this lousy butter knife thing."

Glancing from the door and the table against, to the rear of the cabin then to the knife in her hand, the start of a plan comes to mind on how deal with at least one of the wolves.

"Ok, simple solution is probably the best. Divide and conquer. Thankfully the wolves have already helped with the divide part… I really hope this works."

Adding the chair onto the table giving it a bit more heft, she slowly moves it away from the door a small amount. Moving around the furniture to the other side of the doorway, where she readies herself and her weapon, opening the door a fraction. Looking through the gap, she sees the wounded wolf wandering around, likely waiting for her to exit.

"Here wolf, wolfy, come and get me." She calls out through the gap in the door.

The wolf's head sharply turns in the direction of her voice, snarls and charges straight for her.

Slithering back and holding her knife aloft, the wolf crashes into the door, where it then hits the furniture and after a slight slide, it holds firm. The wolf having been able to force its head through the gap before getting stuck. It then proceeds to snap its jaws in Octavia's direction hoping to reach its prey, as it struggles to free itself from the door.

Out of reach from the wolf, celebrating with a quick cheer of "yes!", Octavia takes the opportunity to slice downwards in hopes of impaling the wolfs head.

With all the thrashing of the wolf trying to dislodge itself and having never handled a knife for use in a fight, only for cooking, in place of impaling the skull, she ends up slashing across its right eye.

After a howl of pain followed by more desperate struggling, the wolf manages to make its way back out through the door, where it runs around in pain and paws at its face. Octavia closes the door as fast as she can, having heard the scratching at the back stop and a thunder of steps head around the building towards the door. She manages to push the table back just in time for the other wolf to barrel into the door.

"That's one almost dealt with. I imagine after that it will be a bit more cautious before trying that again."

As she ponders her next move, whines can still be heard at the front, whereas the other she can hear around to the side of the building and start scratching again, trying to dig its way in again.

"I need for finish off the wounded one, then I can deal with the other."

Heading back to the door, she tries the same trick again, but as she thought, it stayed back prowling around.

"How can I get it to come after me. It needs some tastier bait, something to make it think it has an easy win", she thinks to herself. Looking around the room again and with nothing comes to mind, she suddenly catches a glimpse of her tail.

"What is that?"

Crouching down, and taking hold of her tail, she sees three long scratch marks on the end of her tail, as if one of the wolves caught it but ended up sliding off the end.

"It must have been the feeling when I was running. Seems like it's quite durable as I hardly felt that before. That just might work."

Readying her knife again, she slides her tail part way out through the door and starts to wiggle, acting like a worm on a hook. Receiving nothing, she pushes it out a little further in hope the bait entices the predator. The wolf having spotted this end up throwing caution to the wind and can't help but take the bait, charges again at the tail.

Octavia seeing this goes to pull her tail back, but even with its wound, the desperation the wolf is exhibiting allows it to reach her faster than she thought it would, getting through the gap in the door and latching onto her tail.

"Ahh!" she cries out. Even with the lack of feeling she felt in the tail previously from the scratches the wolf gave it, a powerful bite is a different story.

A tug of war then starts between the two, where from the shock, Octavia fairs badly at first, with the wolf managing to pull her tail out through the door, with herself close to following it.

"Get off me you, stupid mutt".

After the shock though comes anger, where though sheer will and a little upper body strength pushing against the door frame, Octavia pulls her tail and the wolf with it, towards herself. As its body reaches the gap in the doorway, she slams herself into it with her whole body causing some serious harm to the wolf while also holding it in place.

The wolf continues to bite away at her tail, causing more damage and bleeding. Gritting through the pain, Octavia takes the knife and swings down towards the wolf's head as hard and as fast as she can. Making up for the mistake from last time, the knife lands dead on the top of its head, penetrating its skull, where after a few twitches the wolf finally stops moving and fall limp to the floor.

A relieved deep breath she didn't know she was holding is released. "Finally," she breaths out as she peers at the dead wolf. The sight of it and the blood pouring from its wound finally gets to Octavia, causing her to suddenly dry heave at the fact she had just killed something.

"Urrk, that's horrible."

Pushing through the moment due to the danger not being over, Octavia takes hold of the wolf and pulls it into the house and closes the door. Taking the blade still stuck in the head, she yanks it as hard as she can. After a few tugs, the knife is eventually freed, but with it comes a spurt of blood.

"Urrk. This is horrible."

After the second bout of dry heaving, she manages to place the table back in front of the door and listens out for the location of the other wolf.

As she silently listens out, she finally hears where the wolf is outside the house. The scratching, however, sounds more frantic and higher up on the building than before.

"What is it doing?"

Looking in the direction the scratching is, she looks around the area and spots the window.

"Wait, is it trying to get through the wid-"

*Smash*

The sudden sound of glass breaking cuts Octavia's sentence off. That along with the ball of fur suddenly rolling across the room, covered in glass shards and blood.

It suddenly comes to a stop and after a slight dizzy spell, looks around the room and spots its fellow wolf, dead on the floor. It then looks over towards her, growls and without wasting any time, pulls back and leaps.

"Ah."

Octavia only has a few moments to realise what has happened, where she is thankfully able to bring her hands up to her face just in time, as the wolf hits her chest pushing her down.

Falling to the floor, lamia and wolf fight to the death in the final stand of the battle. The wolf's snarls down at its prey, snapping its jaw multiple times trying to reach her face, only to be impeded by Octavia's crossed arms pushing against its neck.

Its back paws claw away at her tail, thankfully while still damaging it, they are not nearly as hurtful as when the wolfs jaw was locked on her tail. Given its position, its front legs hang in the air, shifting back and forth trying to find purchase on something. As they move, they end up lightly scratching her human half, red claw marks slowly forming from each pass of its legs.

"Arrgh" gritting her teeth, Octavia holds the wolf at bay with all the strength she can muster. Trying to figure out a way out of this situation proves difficult with the wolf's mouth fiercely snaping very close to her face, with saliva pouring out and landing on her face. The pain from its paws also don't help, getting worse and worse as time goes on.

More trouble comes from the fact that even though she is stronger than she used to be, that doesn't help when you are against time. All that strength is slowly being sapped away as she can see the wolf's mouth getting closer and closer with each snap of its jaws.

"What can I do, what can I do." Deep in thought trying to keep herself of dying, having only been in this world for such a short amount of time, the knife suddenly comes to the fore front of her mind. Looking around the room as best she can, she spots the knife in the corner of the room close to the door, and very much out of her reach.

"Damn it! Of course it is!" she cries. "Think damn it, think."

A surge of pain comes from her tail, as from the constant shredding of her scales, the wolfs claws have ended up quite deep in her tail. "Ahhh" the pain causing a visceral cry from Octavia, the shock of it causing her arms to jolt and slacken, bring the wolf even closer to tearing her apart. Its jaw closing on a hair's breadth away from her face.

The wolf was also able to sink its claws further onto her chest, ripping off the makeshift top, and scratching deeper across her human half.

"Arrrgh!" Gritting her teeth and barely being able to bare the pain, she uses all her remaining strength to push as hard as she can to keep it at bay.

This though somehow has a silver lining, the pain of which bringing the tail's use into focus and memories of the conversation with the Goddess Prisma. Recalling that conversation "…your tail should be quite strong and durable so it should be useful as a weapon…" it hits her how much a fool she has been. While being useful as bait for the first wolf, having been human her whole life till now, its use in other ways aside form walking were missed by Octavia. Realising this, a grin appears on her face.

Having gained a better understanding of how her tail works by now, she slowly curls the tip up and moves it across the top of the wolf's body. This new sensation causes the wolf to stop in its attacks, realising something is happening in its blind spot. Continuing her movements, she moves more of her tail around, ending up under the wolf and curling up the other side.

The wolf looking around at the new danger panics, clawing away again as it tries to get away, moving its necks side to side in an attempt to roll of her arms.

"Ah, ah, ah. Where do you think you're going? After all that you've done to me, there is no way you're getting away from this."

Her tail unable to move any further, now completely surrounds the wolf, having weaved around its body twice. The whines and desperate cries of the wolf can be heard, and almost shatter Octavia's resolve. But once she saw the bloody scratch marks on her tail and chest, that resolve hardens.

Using her strength, she is able to pull the wolf off her body using her tail with only a slight need to push with her arms, causing it to slam to the floor. Tightening her grip on the wolf, she starts to constrict the wolf, where it becomes more frantic. Eventually, as she tightens the wolfs movements start to slow, until eventually no more movement can be seen.

*huff* *huff* "I hope not every day ends up like this."

It's at this point, the stress and fatigue from the situation ends up hitting her like a train, causing her sight to darken as she starts to pass out, all the while thankful that its actually just fatigue hitting her and not some magical venom like last time.