by Nicole Yek
Without waiting for the rabbit's reply, she swiftly took him into her arms and carried him back to the tree where she had left her basket. She carefully set the rabbit down on the ground next to the basket and reached into it to take out a bright red apple and a small knife. With impressive precision, she sliced out a part of the apple and offered it to the rabbit while she ate the rest of it. The rabbit munched down happily on the apple slice and he hopped closer to Garnet's side when he was done eating. Garnet beamed and stroked his soft head as she took another bite of her apple.
"Maybe this place isn't so bad after all." She murmured to no one in particular.
After she finished the apple, she grabbed her basket and stood up. "Well, I'm going now." She told the white rabbit staring up at her. "I'm going to my grandma's house, it's on the other side of the Wood."
The rabbit continued to stare at her, unmoving. An idea then popped into Garnet’s mind which caused a ridiculously huge grin to spread across her face. "I wonder if you'd like to come with me?" she asked him and the rabbit immediately hopped up and down in response.
Garnet chuckled. "I'll take that as a ‘yes' then."
She started walking forward again but this time with the little rabbit following beside her. "You know," she said to the rabbit hopping next to her. "If you're going to accompany me on my trip then I should at least give you a name so I'll know what to call you."
The rabbit kept on hopping beside her, never slowing down in fear of falling behind.
"Hmm," Garnet thought with a hand on her chin. "What name should I give you…? Oh, I know!" she exclaimed, stopping abruptly. "I'll call you Button!"
The rabbit halted his hopping and stared up at her, his little pink nose sniffing the air around them.
"Alright, it's settled! From now onwards, you will be known as Button the rabbit!" the brunette declared.
Button made no signs of protest against the name which made Garnet all the more content. She continued walking with the newly named rabbit hopping alongside her. The two went deeper and deeper into the forest but after some time of walking, she realized that something was wrong. It might just have been her imagination or her lack of knowledge on trees but she was sure that she passed quite a few of them before, earlier in the morning when she had entered the forest.
The brunette stopped walking and took out her compass. She was going north, towards the kingdom, towards her grandmother, she had been going north all along. Yet… she felt as though she hadn't moved an inch since she came into the Wood that morning. It didn't make sense at all.
Garnet exhaled a loud, frustrated sigh and when she glanced up at the sky, she saw that it was already becoming dark. The night was coming and she decided that it would be best if she took shelter under one of the trees for the night. It wouldn't do her any good to walk around in the dark since she wouldn't be able to see anything. The brunette chose a nearby tree and sat down, relaxing her back against its trunk. It was much smaller than the tree that she had her lunch under but it felt more comfortable.
She gently laid her basket on the leaf-covered ground beside her and Button instantly hopped onto her lap, making her laugh in surprise. She took him in her arms and shut her weary eyes, enjoying the softness of his fur against her cheek. She hadn't realized how exhausted she was until she had finally taken a break.
As night gradually fell upon the land, Garnet slowly drifted off into a sweet slumber filled with dreams of flower meadows and white rabbits.
She was later woken up by a nudge on her chin. Her eyes slowly fluttered open to find that the culprit was none other than Button who she noticed, was shaking in her arms. Her brows furrowed in confusion and concern. "What's wrong, Button?"
The white rabbit's eyes were focused on something in front of them and the brunette followed its gaze forward. It was dark in the Wood, and Garnet could barely make out anything if it weren't for the faint rays of moonlight that seeped through the cracks in the leaves. She squinted her eyes, scanning the darkness where the moon didn't shine on and that was when she heard an animalistic growl. Her eyes shot wide open as numerous pairs of luminous yellow eyes appeared in the shadows around her. She gasped.
They were surrounded by wolves.
Chapter Four
Garnet’s blood chilled and she felt as though all the air had left her lungs, leaving her desperate for it yet not daring to do so in fear that it might set off the wolves that surrounded her. Button was trembling incessantly in her arms; his dark eyes wide and filled with fear. The brunette looked down at the frightened rabbit and bit down on her bottom lip as she tried to come up with a solution to escape the vicious wolves.
One of the wolves stepped out from its place in the shadows and into the part of the forest where moonlight shone down on. Garnet could see its dark brown fur and incredulously sharp white teeth as it let out another low growl. The brunette shrunk back unintentionally, her hold on the rabbit tightening. There were no possible means of escape for her, three wolves were surrounding her and even if she did manage to slip through them somehow, they could run much, much faster than Garnet ever could and would eventually catch her.
The wolf in front of her took another step towards her, causing her thoughts to jumble up as she felt more panicked with every passing second. At that moment, her green eyes caught sight of a fallen tree branch just a few inches from her, and without thinking twice, she leaned down to whisper to the rabbit. “You go hide, alright?”
She swiftly put Button down on the ground for it to escape and before any of the wolves could go after him, Garnet grabbed the thick branch from the leaf-covered ground and whacked harshly down on two of their heads. The two wolves let out moans of pain that had probably caught the attention of the third wolf because its beastlike yellow eyes immediately shifted away from the rabbit that was desperately hopping away from them and they fell on the brunette who had attacked her kin. It growled angrily and pounced on the girl.
Acting on her instincts and reflexes, Garnet ducked before it could catch her. She was barely a hair’s breadth away from the wolf’s claw and if she had waited a moment longer, she would have been shredded into pieces. Another growl escaped from the wolf as it hit the empty ground, unsatisfied with not being able to catch its prey. The brunette’s eyes darted onto her forgotten basket under the tree as she remembered that there was a knife inside. It was small, yes, but it was the closest thing that she had to a real weapon at that time.
The two wolves that she had whacked on their heads earlier seemed to have recovered from their assaults and both were eyeing her with burning rage. They both pounced on her but the girl managed to duck down in time, and she realized how foolish it was for the two wolves to attack her at the same time as they ended up knocking their heads into each other and falling onto the ground one on top of the other.
Garnet hadn’t realized how breathless she was and how hard that her heart was beating against her chest until she had landed on her knees from ducking the wolves’ attacks. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly and her heart was thumping so hard, threatening to slam against and shatter her ribcage as she fumbled for the knife in her weaved basket. By the time she found it and looked up, the third wolf was standing right in front of her with its mouth twisted into what seemed like a sharp and wicked grin. It could have attacked her while she was searching for the knife but it didn’t, and Garnet realized that it was toying with her, playing with its prey before it killed and consumed it. Anger began to boil within her at how low the malicious creature had thought of her and without a thought, she plunged the sharp end of the knife into one of the wolf’s glowing yellow eyes.
She ripped the knife out from its eye socket and scrambled for the tree as fast as she could. She tried to climb it but her hands kept slipping down from the slightly wet surface of the trunk due to the midnight mist. She caught the two wolves that had foolishly collided with each other stand up from the corner of her eye and plunged the knife into the tree trunk as she had do
ne with the wolf’s eye moments before. She used the knife’s handle as leverage to pull herself up and latched her other hand onto a nearby branch. She pulled the knife out and just as she was about to stab it in a higher spot on the tree to climb further up, she felt a rough tug on the end of her cloak. She snapped her head down to see that the wolf that she stabbed had the end of her crimson cloak in its mouth, tugging and pulling it down with unnatural strength.
Garnet quickly jabbed the knife back into the tree and tried to hold on to its handle and the branch but her grip was weakening as her cloak, which was tied around her neck, started to choke her due to the brutal force tugging it downward. She had thought about untying it from her neck but she couldn’t, she would have to let go of either the knife’s handle or the branch and she didn’t have enough strength to hold herself up with only one hand while the wolf was dragging her down. She would die either way, whether it was through choking to death by her favorite red cloak or falling down to the ground right into the clutches of the wolf.
She didn’t like both choices, and she wanted neither one. Just when she had assumed that all hope was lost, she heard a deafening howl. She felt the hold at the end of her cloak loosen only vaguely but it was enough to allow her to crane her neck around to look behind her towards the direction which the howl had come from.
It was another wolf, but it was significantly different than the other three. It was bigger than them, about twice their size, and that alone was enough to send another streak of fear coursing through the girl. The large wolf stepped closer, into the patch of moonlight and she noticed another characteristic of it that was unlike the others was its white and sliver fur that practically gleamed under the beams of pale blue light. Its eyes were also different, they were of a striking blue hue, and the brunette couldn’t help but find the creature beautiful, its appearance almost surreal. It was certainly like no other wolf she had ever seen before.
The other wolves released low growls which Garnet assumed were threats to the unexpected appearance of the silver wolf. Although it was bigger in size compared to the others, there were three of them while only one of it, and yet it still stood its ground, looking as brave and heroic as a knight in shining armor. Without a warning, the silver wolf lunged at the one that had its hold on Garnet’s red cloak, causing it to release the crimson fabric as it toppled over onto the ground with the silver wolf atop of it. It mercilessly clawed at the smaller wolf beneath it. The wolf cried out in agony as blood gushed out from its wounds and Garnet winced at the sight.
The other two wolves attempted to attack to avenge its kin but they were either severely clawed at the throat or flung to the side before they could even inflict any injuries on the silver wolf. When the two wolves managed to get back up on their feet moments later, they instantly ran off, whimpering. The silver wolf let out a satisfied growl and returned its attention onto the injured and bloody wolf underneath it.
It continued to claw at it, spilling so much blood, more blood than Garnet had ever seen in her life. The brunette was horrified by the gruesome scene happening before her, she wanted to look away but she couldn’t. She hadn’t realized that she was crying until she felt something wet sliding down her dirty cheeks.
“Stop!” she cried out. She had no idea what made her do so, what made her feel sympathetic towards a wolf that tried to kill her only minutes ago.
She hadn’t expected the silver wolf to hear her much less obey her, but that was exactly what it did. It ceased its assaults on the wolf beneath it that was barely even breathing and slowly removed itself off of its bloody body on the ground.
Garnet cautiously made her way back down the tree and her feet landed on the forest ground with a faint ‘thump’. Her green eyes were locked on the silver wolf that was staring right back at her. She made no move to touch it or to draw near it. The silver wolf eventually looked away and began to walk back to where it came. The brunette’s eyebrows furrowed in concern as she noticed the lack of strength and eloquence that it had possessed when it had first appeared.
Her suspicions about the creature’s condition turned out to be true as it suddenly collapsed onto the leaf-covered ground after barely taking a few steps. Garnet rushed to its side without a moment’s hesitation and knelt down next to its limp body. It was evident to her that the wolf had gotten blood on its coat from attacking the other but she hadn’t truly known how much had stained its silver fur until she was by its side. Dark red blood was dripping down its body and falling onto the leaves beneath it. She knew that most of the blood wasn't its own but she couldn’t help but scan its limp body for any signs of injury. But there was not a single scratch to be seen on its body, it had come out of the fight completely unharmed.
She breathed out a sigh of relief and surmised that the silver wolf had most likely collapsed due to exhaustion. As gently as she could, she brought its head onto her lap. She didn’t mind the blood as it stained her skirts since they wouldn’t actually be visible on the red fabric and stroked the top of its head.
“Thank you for saving me.” She whispered, and she didn’t know when but soon after, her vision became hazy and her eyelids droopy and before she knew it, sleep had overcome her.
Chapter Five
Garnet’s forest green eyes slowly fluttered open to find herself back under the tree from the evening before. She stretched out her arms and her brows came together when she remembered that she had woken up in the middle of the night. Her eyes went wide as the rest of the memories from that night came flooding back into her mind like water rushing out of a broken dam; the three wolves' attack, the silver wolf's abrupt appearance, and collapsing after having rescued her.
Her head snapped to the side where one of the wolves that were after her had been attacked but there was nothing there. When Garnet looked around her surroundings, the silver wolf was nowhere in sight either. She would almost believe that it had all been a dream if it weren't for the dried blood splatters on the ground where the injured wolf had been lying, and the trail of red paw prints from where the silver wolf had walked and then collapsed. The evidence was all there, yet the two wolves were gone.
Truthfully speaking, Garnet would rather choose not to see the wolf that had attacked her again; however, she did want to find the one that had saved her. Raking a hand through her long, messy, brown locks, she stood up straight and dusted her skirts. Her ears perked up when she heard the soft sound of dry leaves crackling behind her and she spun around on reflex. Her lips fell open and spread into a surprised grin as she looked down at none other than Button sitting on the spot where she had woken up in just moments ago.
"Button!" she exclaimed and bent down to pull the white rabbit into her arms. "Thank goodness you're alright and haven't been eaten by any wolves!"
The rabbit let out a tiny sneeze, causing Garnet to squeal and stroke his sniffling pink nose. "You are so adorable, Button!" she cooed. It took several seconds later for her to stop fawning over the little creature in her arms and remember her goal of finding the silver wolf. "Oh, right," she looked Button in his dark brown eyes. "Button, I'm looking for a silver wolf." She told the rabbit, curling a hand up into a claw and trying to imitate a wolf's growl to get her point across. "Have you seen one walking around here?"
Button started moving in her arms and noticing this, she surmised that he wanted to get back down onto the ground. She placed him gently down and right after his feet touched the forest ground, he quickly began hopping towards the open path on the left.
"I'll take that as a ‘yes'." Garnet grabbed her basket which was under the tree and chased after the rabbit.
The two passed countless of trees and shrubs, and the constant sound of dry leaves crackling underfoot as they walked and hopped reminded the girl of winter time back at home in the village where the fire was always bright, crackling, and warm. She realized then that she hadn't actually thought about home after entering the Wood and it made her wonder if Meriana and Knox were alright without her there
. Were they worried about her? Did they miss her? Was Meriana furious with her? Was Knox feeling bored without her there to tease and play with him?
As these thoughts ran through her mind, Garnet's footsteps had unintentionally slowed and Button was getting farther and farther away from her. By the time she snapped out of her trance, she found that she had stopped walking entirely and was standing in the middle of nowhere and Button was gone. Grumbling at herself for her short attention span, the brunette broke into a run in search for the white rabbit.
"Button!" she called out, hoping that he would hear her and come hopping. "Button!"
After running for a few minutes, she spotted a glimpse of white from the corner of her eye and turned to find Button's cute little bottom and round tail sticking out beside a shrub a few trees away. She sighed in relief and made her way over to where the rabbit was but as she got nearer, she halted dead in her tracks. He wasn't alone.
There was a boy with him. He was dressed in a slightly torn white shirt and a pair of contrasting black pants and he was bent down in a crouch as he petted Button's head. Garnet couldn't see his face since his back was turned to her but she wasn't really interested in seeing it anyway as another one of his features had already caught her pique. Protruding from the boy's lower back was… a tail. He had a tail, a long, silver tail… like a wolf's.
Realization struck the brunette harder than a ton of bricks and she released a loud gasp, catching both the boy and Button's attention and making them turn to look in her direction. The brunette felt as though all the air had dissipated from her lungs as she took in the boy's appearance. One definite word that she would use to describe him was pale, extremely pale. The boy had skin so pale and white that it was nearly translucent and his hair was stark silver which practically gleamed under the sunlight that seeped through the glimpses between the leaves in the Wood. But these features made his vibrant sapphire-blue eyes all the more prominent and captivating… and they were exactly the same as the silver wolf's. Another fairly noticeable physical attribute of his that caught Garnet's attention besides his unique blue eyes were the pair of wolf ears on top of his head, popping out from his silver locks.