The Girl and the Wolf

by Nicole Yek

  She didn't recognize any of their faces and when she was about to run off in panic and confusion, a small figure suddenly tackled her legs and clung onto them. The brunette's startled green eyes immediately snapped to look at down her legs to find a little boy who seemed to be around her brother's age hugging her calves with a tight grip. The young boy had dark brown hair and a fringe nearly covering his big, glittering chocolate-hued eyes.

  It took the girl a second to realize that the boy clinging onto her legs like a monkey to a tree branch was none other than the little wren, Biff. Her eyes widened and she bent down to pull him into a warm embrace. "Biff!" she exclaimed. "You're a boy!" she pulled him away to take a better look at him and noticed that he was wearing clothes that were rather old-fashioned and much too big for his small frame.

  "And you're wearing old man's clothes for some reason…?" she stared at his choice of clothing in bafflement.

  Hywel decided to join her one-sided conversation and answer her question. "They're what I suppose were your grandfather's clothes, these are the only available clothing that we could find here. Since Biff and the others were all animals before the curse was broken, they didn't have any clothing after they returned back into humans. I hope you don't mind that we borrow some of them."

  Upon hearing this, Garnet did a swift scan over the other males in the living room. They were all indeed wearing clothes that she had seen on her grandfather when she was little and he was still alive. She turned to look at Hywel last. He was wearing the same vaguely torn white shirt and black pants as he had on in the forest, and he was the only one in the room apart from her that wasn't wearing her deceased grandfather's clothes.

  "I don't mind at all," she said and hugged Biff once more. "I'm just so glad that you're all back to normal."

  "Yes, and so are we!" Mathis' unmistakable voice boomed out and the brunette looked up to see the tan man with the mustache walking towards her with open arms. "This calls for a celebratory hug, Miss Garnet!"

  "Mathis!" she cried out in glee as the man pulled both her and Biff into his arms for a bearlike embrace. "You have a mustache!"

  Mathis let out a hearty laugh, twirling one of the ends of his mustache with his fingers as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Yes! Do you like it, Miss?"

  Garnet laughed. "To be honest, it looks as though you have a squirrel on your face."

  "Maybe that was why your grandmother had turned him into a squirrel." Hywel smirked in amusement, making the man roll his eyes. "I'm going to ignore that inconsiderate remark." He said, releasing the girl and the young boy from his arms.

  The brunette moved towards the others in the room, starting with the burly old man whom she surmised was Rutherford, the tortoise. "It's good to see you, Rutherford," She wrapped her arms around him and he did the same. "I hope I hadn't hurt you when I accidentally dropped you last night."

  "It's alright, dear," he said and pulled away to give her a gentle smile. "I had a hard shell, which I would miss if it wasn't so heavy."

  With a laugh, Garnet moved on to the boy with dark blonde hair that nearly reached his shoulders. "I suppose you're Atticus?" she asked sheepishly.

  "The one and only." He flashed a mischievous smirk at her and she was about to pull him into an embrace like she had with Rutherford when the boy suddenly held out his hand, stopping her mind-action. She blinked at him, bewildered. "I'd like to warn you that a wolf is extremely possessive," he smirked, tilting his head towards Hywel who was eyeing them intently from across the room. "And I would rather not be killed on the first day of returning back into a human."

  Atticus held his hand to the girl, asking for a simple handshake instead of receiving a hug. Garnet stared at his outstretched hand before breaking out into a mouth-splitting grin and shook it. "I didn't expect you to be so devilish, Atticus."

  "Well, why do you suppose that I'm Hywel's most liked and trusted companion?" he inquired, his dark eyes glinting with interest.

  She shrugged. "Because you're clever and witty?"

  "I won't deny that claim," he said. "However, Hywel prefers troublemakers over studious scholars, and I'm one of the most troublesome ones in the whole castle."

  "That… is quite a unique friendship." She mused and he grinned. She then moved on the last person whom she hadn't formally met.

  The tall man with the blonde hair tied into a short ponytail was standing next to the small table in the room with his hands placed behind his back, looking like the epitome of gentlemen. She already knew who he was, he was the first one that she met upon entering the Wood, and that somehow made her even more afraid of meeting him after he’d turned back into a human. She was so used to his animal form that seeing him looking like a proper, responsible and intelligent adult made her feel as though he was someone entirely different. "B-button…?" she tried meekly.

  "Yes, Garnet?" he replied politely and looked down at her with gentle dark brown eyes.

  "Is… is that really you?" she blurted out unintentionally and she felt like the stupidest person in the whole world.

  Instead of becoming irritated, the blonde man cracked a smile at her obvious question and he gave a light nod. The girl attempted to smile but it turned out weak and forced. "You look so different."

  "That I do indeed." He said.

  She shifted the weight from one leg to the other, feeling awkward. She was grateful that he didn't treat her like a stranger and since he had never been much of a talker to begin with, she surmised that this change she felt was entirely in her own mind. "Do I call you Nathaniel from now on…?" she asked timidly.

  His expression softened at her and he leaned down so she could hear him whisper. "You can still call me Button, but don't let anyone else find out." He whispered and held out a pinky finger to her. "It'll be our little secret, alright?"

  Garnet stared with surprised eyes at his finger and with a giant grin breaking across her face, she wrapped her own smaller pinky around his. "It will be our little secret!" she repeated quietly so no one else could hear. She pulled her finger away and tackled the man with a warm hug which he gladly returned.

  Mathis sniffled at the two. "That was so beautiful. I think I'm going to cry."

  Hywel shook his head, smiling. He moved across the room to clamp a hand on the man's shoulder. "Alright, you can cry after we get back to the castle. Come on, it's time for us to go." He said and glanced at the others.

  "We're leaving right now?" Mathis exclaimed. "B-but Garnet had just woken up! We should at least…" his voice trailed off when he saw the sad smile on the silver-haired boy's face.

  "My apologies, Mathis, but I wasn't able to persuade Garnet to come back with us." He said.

  Mathis' face fell instantly, his shoulders slumping forward and his back hunched as though all the life had suddenly been drained out of him. Biff turned to look at Garnet who had already broken away from her embrace with Nathaniel and was standing next to him. "You're not coming with us, Garnet? Why?" he questioned with sad eyes.

  "No, Biff, I'm sorry but I have things to take care of here." The brunette replied as nicely as she could, not wanting to hurt the little boy any further.

  "But… but, Miss Garnet!" Mathis cried out. "We've been through so much together! You can't possibly leave us like this!"

  Garnet chuckled at the man's histrionic outburst. "We've only known each other for a little more than two days, Mathis."

  "That is true, but it felt like years to me!" he protested, a hand clutching his chest in an attempt to seem as though he was in great agony.

  Hywel rolled his eyes at him. "There's no need to fret, Mathis, she made a promise to me that she would come and visit us after she gets things settled." He said, endeavoring to comfort him and make him stop his incessant whines. The man's hazel eyes instantly lit up at his words and he glanced at Garnet for confirmation in which she gave him a nod in response.

  The exuberant man let out a loud cry of excitement before turning to look at his companions. "What are yo
u all waiting for? We have to go back to the castle and get it in tip-top shape if Miss Garnet is to come and visit us soon!"

  The others shot him an irritated glare all at once, making Hywel and Garnet laugh. Everyone soon said their farewells and final words to the brunette before they left the small little house at the edge of the Wood. Garnet followed them out into the clearing beside the house and sent them off on their journey with the weaved basket that she had carried into the forest filled with food for when they get hungry during their way to the castle. She watched as the small group departed for their trip, returning waves when a few of them occasionally turned around to wave at her.

  She stared after their gradually receding figures until they became nothing more than a black smudge in the far distance. She stared after them, feeling as though she had left a part of her with them as they slowly vanished out of sight. She stared after them and smiled, knowing that she would meet them again.

  Epilogue

  “Here, read this.” Hywel dropped an incredulously thick book onto the reading table in front of Garnet.

  The brunette stared at the dusty dark beige leather binding of the massive book sitting before her. Her mouth fell agape in shock and terror but the silver-haired prince must have mistaken her startled expression for one of pleasant surprise because a wide grin broke across his pale face at her reaction. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Simply magnificent!" he exclaimed in utter glee, standing tall with his hands on his hips. "It's my favorite book-"

  "This," Garnet spoke, swallowing the huge lump that had formed in her throat upon seeing the book. "Is the most intimidating thing that I have ever seen in my entire life."

  The boy's eyebrow twitched in chagrin at her words, his grin disappearing within an instant. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at the girl sitting opposite him at the table. The brunette tore her horrified gaze away from the giant book to look up at him with pleading green eyes. "Please tell me that you have something else. It's impossible for me to read something so huge and terrifying when I've never even read a single book in my entire life!"

  He stared at her for a moment, unrelenting, but her big, sad eyes made a wave of guilt wash over him and he sighed. "Fine, I suppose I have other smaller books lying around here."

  "Thank you, Hywel, you're the best!" she beamed, glad at having been able to escape from the torture of reading such a thick volume of writing.

  "How many times do I have to tell you? Flattery doesn't work on me." The boy rolled his eyes as he bent down to reach for one of the books on the bottom shelves.

  The two were currently in the castle library and since Garnet had never even been to a normal library before, her jaw dropped and her eyes were wide in awe after stepping foot into the castle's. High shelves filled with books of all colors and sizes towered over them and they acted as the walls of the room because the brunette couldn't see even a sliver of the white marble wall that all the other rooms in the castle had. The bookshelves were gargantuan and the room was about triple the size of Garnet's house back in the village.

  Even though that was the girl's first visit to the library, she had already been living in the castle along with Knox and Meriana for almost two months. After Hywel and the rest left the Wood about three months ago, Garnet had stayed in her grandmother's house for a few days, cleaning up her belongings and the likes. She left her small house at the edge of the forest and went back inside the Wood, heading back to the village. It took her a day's trip to get home and both her brother and stepmother came tackling her with tight embraces the moment she arrived at their doorstep. There, she remained in the village for one month, living a simple life as she had before she left for the Wood and met Hywel. To her surprise after returning from the Wood, the villagers had started to rebuild the ruined Great Bridge and Mr. Willows, the head of the village, predicted that it would be done within two more months.

  During this time, however, she hadn't forgotten about her promise to the silver-haired prince to visit him in the near future, and it also seemed that he had informed the king about the Wood being no longer cursed as the kingdom's messengers began to use it as an alternative route to come to the village while the reconstruction of the Great Bridge was still in progress. She heard news that the gravely ill king decided to step down from his position, and that the second prince, whose birth had been hidden from the people for more than sixteen years, had been crowned the new heir to the throne of Cerenth. The brunette couldn't have heard any better news than that. It was also during this time when a royal messenger from the kingdom came to the village, knocking on the brunette's door at dawn one morning.

  When she opened the door, she felt tears swell up in her eyes as she saw Mathis standing right at her doorstep. The man told her that she, along with her family had received a special invitation to stay at the castle, and that was how Garnet ended up living there. Originally, she hadn't planned to stay for such a long period, but neither Hywel nor the other residents in the castle protested against it, and she had grown to love living there. Although that wasn't because of the luxuries that came with it or the extravagant feasts, well, partially because of the feasts, but she loved living with Hywel and all the others. She hadn't realized how much she had missed them until she was reunited with them again.

  "Alright, we'll start with this one." Hywel said, placing a much thinner book down on the table. The book was a pastel blue shade and it looked a hundred times less formidable than the book that he had given her earlier.

  Garnet pushed the big, leather bound book to a side and brought the blue book forward. The boy grabbed an empty chair from his side of the table and dragged it next to the brunette and sat down beside her. He looked at her expectantly and she took in a deep breath, preparing herself for what literary monsters awaited her inside the pages and making Hywel roll his eyes at her histrionic behavior. But as she was about to open the book, the large doors of the library flew open and in stumbled Knox and Biff. Biff was the first to get up onto his feet and he was off running around the room. Knox got up a few seconds later and immediately sped off chasing after the boy.

  "Biff! What on earth are you doing running around the castle?" Hywel stood up from his seat, outraged. "And this is a library! Running and yelling is strictly forbidden! At least respect the rules, would you?"

  "I'm… sorry!" Biff cried out in between giggles, occasionally turning around to glance at Knox who was gradually gaining on him. "But Knox… he… we're playing tag!"

  "Well, play it outside! This library is a sacred place for readers and-"the prince began but he was stopped mid-speech when Garnet's brother came crashing into him. He let out a cry of surprise as they both fell onto the floor. He was left groaning in pain while the little boy was perfectly unharmed as the prince's body acted as a cushion to break his fall.

  "Oh! I'm sorry, Prince Hywel!" Knox quickly apologized and got off of him. "I swear, I didn't mean to knock into you on purpose!"

  "It's quite alright, Knox." he sighed and Garnet held out a hand for him which he gladly took. She helped him back to his feet and the prince gave her a nod of thanks which she returned with a smile. He shifted his attention back onto the little boy standing in front of him and said in an authoritative tone, "But don't run in the castle, especially not the library. If the two of you plan to play tag or any other games that involve running, please play outside in the royal gardens."

  "Yes, sir!" Knox saluted and Hywel couldn't help but smile.

  Biff had stopped running and was looking between the two. He was about to call out for Knox when an older woman's voice echoed through the hallway outside of the library. Meriana came running to the doorway a few seconds later, her breathing was ragged and she sighed in relief as she took in the sight of the two little boys. "Knox, Biff," she breathed as the two boys went over to her. "I was looking everywhere for you! You shouldn't run off somewhere without telling me. I was so worried about you two."

  "We're sorry." The two boys said in u
ncanny synchronization.

  Meriana looked down at them with an endearing gaze and she led them out of the library. "Well, at least you're alright," she turned around to look at Garnet and Hywel before exiting the room. "And I hope that they haven't caused the two of you too much trouble!"

  "Not at all." Hywel reassured.

  Garnet pursed her lips in amusement. "Well, that was interesting."

  Upon moving to the castle, her brother had instantly struck an inseparable bond with Biff. They were rarely seen without the other and a stranger could most likely mistake them for brothers. Besides that, Meriana had also won a place in Biff's heart and vice versa. She treated him as though he was her own flesh and blood and although she could never replace Anbreen, Biff made her out to be like his second mother. It was safe to say that both Knox and Meriana enjoyed living in the castle along with its other occupants as much as Garnet did.

  Hywel let out another sigh and walked towards the opened doors. "We better close these doors before someone decides to barge in and interrupt us-"

  "Oh, Master Hywel!" Mathis exclaimed, barging into the library just as how the prince had feared. "How are you on this fine afternoon? Oh, Miss Garnet, hello! I had no idea that you would be here!"