Sudden Encounter

Eleonora knew that a single person's decisions and actions could change a person's life forever. For better or worse that is.

If someone had told her, that those live changing encounters would happen not only once or twice but even thrice to her she would have laughed at the person.

The first was yet an unexpected one and not until later was the reason revealed.

The sun was shining and Eleonora had to blink several times before she was used to the brightness in her room. The sunlight shone right onto her face; Eleonora cursed herself for forgetting to shut the window last night.

She closed her eyes again, remembering that she had talked to Lora the whole night. She opened her eyes again, not able to sleep anymore. She wasn't a morning person but still woke up when the sun shone into her room. She hated her high sensitivity.

She looked at the time on her phone. '8:46.' Now that she was awake there was no sleeping anymore. She chuckled at the thought that she went to sleep around 3 am, a bit of self-pity in it. She rolled to the side and sat up on her bed, putting on her morning slippers. She rubbed her eyes a few times in the attempt to wake up, to get rid of the tiredness but failed.

"Morning sis." Theo greeted her from the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee in his hand.

Eleonora scoffed at him, not in the mood to entertain her overly awake and fit brother, who seemed to wake up at five every day. An inhumane habit, as she thought. Well, her going to bed at 2 or 3 am in the morning wasn't considered healthy either. But it was the weekend and she had planned to sleep until noon.

"Woke up on the wrong foot again?" He called after her, laughing loudly, as she reached the door.

She ignored him and pushed the door to the garden open. She was greeted by the cold morning wind and took a deep breath. The scent of the forest and near lake hit her nose. The forest started right at the end of their property and only ten miles further was the lake. With the wind this morning she was able to smell it even here.

She took her first steps down the stairs and flipped her slippers off as she reached the ground, burrying her feet in the cold grass.

"I see you're up already."

She snapped her head to the side, not realizing her father stood beside her.

"Morning sweetheart." He placed a kiss on her forehead and smiled at her.

"Morning." She whispered rather than spoke, her voice was still horse and sleepy. Her father just chuckled.

Eleonora looked at him for a moment. He wore his usual clothes, plain jeans and a shirt that was tugged into his pants. She liked to describe him as a typical man in his fifties who dressed himself like a lumberjack with long curled hair and a beard. Not really the usual dress code for a man in his position. She looked down at his hand to see an axe hanging down. She looked further and saw the pile of firewood behind him, two large stacks were piled up. They would be able to stack it up to the rooftop if he cut anymore.

'He does his outfit justice.' She thought.

She laughed at her own thought. He truly earned his image.

"Go for a run and I'll have your breakfast ready when you're back." Her father walked back to the pile of wood to cut yet another piece of wood.

She smiled for an answer and walked towards the wooden gate of their fence. She was sure to transform only behind it to make sure nothing broke. One morning she was so tired that she had transformed inside the house. On her way out she had destroyed not only the door, but part of the fence too. Her mother was anything but happy about that. Only her brother and father laughed about it, while her mother was furiously gesturing and screaming after her. She had to repair everything on her own and take the morning patrol on the south border.

'Never again.' Eleonora thought at the bitter memories, she was sure to never get the morning shift again. Her mother knew exactly what punishment to use for each of her children. Another time she had confiscated her and Theo's consoles and pcs when they stayed out for two nights partying, without calling home. Her mother and father were worried sick. But she knew she deserved that punishment.

She chuckled at the thought and stopped behind the fence. She looked into the forest, her vision getting clearer and her heart beating faster. Her excitement was reaching it's heights and she could feel shivers running down her skin. Her senses started to sharpen and the ground beneath her feed felt more alive.

And as she heard the click of the door behind her, her body crouched down and within second she walked on four paws. She had turned into a wolf. She gave out a loud howl into the morning sky and ran. Her sudden movement let the ground below her fly away, as she ran past trees and jumped over obstacles.

With every breath she took she got faster, her feet moving cleaner, and she felt as if she was flying over the ground, her paws barely touching the ground as she ran. After a minute of running and pure joy that she felt, she saw the clearing and a cliff coming into her view. She sped up even more and as she reached the edge of the cliff she jumped up, flying over the ground. Then gravity claimed her and drew her to the ground, only for her to be engulfed by something cold and wet. Her heart was beating out of her chest and she paddled to the surface of the lake. Her fur covered body was wet and the fur was sticking to her body. She swam in circles and duck her head down a few times.

She trotted out of the cold lake in her wolf form, shaking the water off her body as soon as she was on the dry grass. She walked to the side and laid down, letting her dark red fur dry in the morning sun. The color of her fur resembled that of her own hair color, fire red. She closed her eyes and attempted to fall asleep again. She rolled and tossed around realizing it didn't work. She rolled onto all four and laid her head onto her forepaws. She looked at the lake that was still covered in the morning fog, a beautiful scenery as she thought. One of her favorite places in the whole forest, in their whole territory.

As she laid on the ground a gust of wind let the brown- and yellow-colored leaves fall to the ground bringing a sweet scent to her nose. The fresh autumn air smelled of pancakes and chocolate. Her tail started wagging as she uncoiciously stood up to walk back home.

'Dad is making his famous pancakes for breakfast.' She thought, grinning internally.

Creak.

She turned around at the sudden sound of a branch breaking. Her senses sharpened to the place she had heard it from. She sniffed the air in that direction but she could only smell the forest and the lake around her.

Crack.

She got into her attack position, not knowing if it was one of the pack members playing a prank on her or an intruder. She had to be cautious. Her father had warned her and her siblings a few weeks ago that rogues had loitered around the border, getting more and more confident some even tried to enter the territory. The stories of attacks on other packs didn't help to ease her mind now.

Eleonora focused her gaze on the forest, the trees were close and only little openings were able to give her sight between them.

'There!' Her instincts sharpened and in that moment she spotted black fur between the trees.

She lunged forward and ran into the direction of the intruder, who had started running away too. Eleonora tried to run faster, to push her limits but the black wolf in front of her was faster than her. He jumped over obstacles with ease and pushed past tree after tree.

Being on his tail and following him she was finally able to sniff his scent. It was a scent she had never smelled before, a mixture of a nostalgic and sweet scent mixed with a foul stench, confirming her suspicion of the intruder, he was a rogue. Her anger rose as she remembered the people and packs that suffered under them. She was sure to stop the rogue and find out what he wanted in their territory.

Without realizing it she had followed the wolf past the border into neutral land. She became slower, knowing there could be far more rogues around. To her surprise the rogue in front of her got slower too, as if matching her pace. He turned around and she could see into his blood-filled eyes. Yet he didn't look threatening, he was simply looking at her, waiting.

The black rogue turned to the side sniffing and Eleonora saw her chance, she picked up her pace and ran to the rogue, snarling and growling, she lunged for his hind leg in hopes to stop him from running. She was inches away as the rogue turned back to her, he was still too late to react in time.

Eleonora snatched at him, but a sudden force pushed her against the next tree.

Her side was hurt and a sharp pain ran through the place where she hit the tree. Her other side was dripping in something warm and wet, she looked down her side to see blood flooding down where she was hit. She got up on her feet, shaky and unstable, from both the pain and the shock. There were now three rogues in front of her. A dark brown one, with brown eyes, who stood snarling beside the black rogue. The other new rogue had a mixture of grey and brown fur, dark blue eyes, and his snout was covered in red, it was covered in blood, in her blood.

Eleonora started to see stars in front of her eyes, knowing the impact had weakened her and in the worst case she would fall uncounsious in a matter of minutes if not seconds. She was outnumbered and stood face to face with three strong rogues. There was no way she could win against them, let alone fight them in her state.

She kept her gaze on the rogues, watching their every moment. The brown and grey one stayed between her and the black one. The black rogue only starred at her, not moving or attempting to fight, nor did he try to flee. Eleonora stepped back a little more, getting more distance between her and the rogues. As soon as she felt far enough that they couldn't reach her if they lunged at her she let out a loud howl hoping to alarm all wolves in the territory and on patrol. She hoped it would reach even to her house, to her father and brother.

As soon as she lowered her head again she saw the grey wolf lunging at her. Thanks to the distance between them she was able to sidestep, only to fall to her side from the striking pain of her wound. The grey wolf seemed to see his chance and turned to her again, snarling his teeth that were still dripping with her blood. She wouldn't let it end like this. She wasn't sure if she could stand but she got on all four and snarled back at him, making him hesitate for a moment.

Even if her vision was starting to get blurry, Eleonora was ready to stop the first attack of the grey rogue. But she was stopped.

Her blood froze as an ear throbbing howl cut the air around her. She looked to her side and saw the black rogue as he fledged his teeth and looked bloodthirsty at her. Yet she didn't want to cover before him. She attempted to stand up again, only for her feet to let out beneath her, she stumbled to the ground again.

As she looked up again they were gone. She felt her heartbeat cease and her eyes grew heavy, her whole body realxed. She regretted not closing the curtains once more before she dropped to the cold forest ground, fading into the darkness.