The Encounter

Shuang put her basket down and started to follow the sound. She continued walking further. Shuang noticed that her surroundings becoming dimmer and dimmer.

The tress were becoming bigger and bigger and taller to the point that there were only smaller beams of sunlight that can pass through the thick branches of the trees.

Shuang heared the sound louder and clearer as she get nearer. Shuang pushed the bushes that blocking in the front of her way. Then she suddenly found herself astounded of what she saw up front.

"Woah! A baby wolves?" Shuang exclaimed. But she immediately frowned when she saw the heavily wounded mother wolf.

Shuang approached the lying mother wolf which is now on the edge of dying. She saw big bite mark in its right side which she could visibly see some of its ribs were broken. Shuang frowned deepen. 'What kind of predator did this bite to this already big kind of a wolf ?'

Shuang subconsciously turned her head to look further at the inner part of the forest.

"Guess this forest is really dangerous like they said. This wolf is already much bigger than the size of a regular wolf but there still something stronger out there that abled to ripped this wolf like this."

Shuang examined the wolf again and the two baby wolves. Then she was shocked by a sudden realisation.

"This, this mother wolf was just newly giving birth?" Shuang's eyes was wide opened.

"How is this even possible? This mother wolf still able to give birth despite her condition?" Shuang was flabbergasted. She was pretty sure, by checking the mother wolf appearance, it's already wounded when it runs here base on the appearance of the wound. And she reckoned that by the time she heard the faint sound of a wolf crying was also the time that it gives birth. Then she looked again at the two baby wolves which look like one week old now. 'This is really not a normal wolf.'

Shuang looked at the mother wolf's fur. It's fur is thick, white and floppy a very good material for making a coat.

" Mother wolf, can I have your fur? Please give me the privilege to use it as my coat as a remembrance of our encounter. In return, I will take good care of your babies.." Shuang said to the mother wolf which is not breathing anymore this time.

Shuang use her small knife to skin off the wolf but to her surprise, the wolf's body suddenly sinked. It looks like a balloon that sinked after being poked by a sharp material leaving only its cleaned fur and bones. The blood and the flesh were no longer can be seen. Shuang tried to take the fur but her being surprised is not over yet. It's because the fur was automatically formed into a long coat with a hood and the bones transformed into a very sharp long sword before it sinked into a long knife form.

Shuang was very shocked this time. She was in a dazed for a seconds.

'M-magic? Is magic really exist in this world?' Shuang was in a stupefied state.

Shuang hesitated for a while before she took the coat and the bone knife and it's sheath from the ground.

She examined the coat and it's very smooth and floppy under her running hand. Contrary to her thoughts, it doesn't have a smell.

Shuang checked on the knife too. The white bone sheath is very smooth and very light. There is a carving in the right upper part of the sheath. It's a picture of a rose that being covered by the crawling thorns.

Shuang tried to check the knife but oddly, she could not pull the knife from its sheath.

"Eh? Don't tell me you are like those I had watched on television like needing some blood of your master before you could function?"