From the looks of it, the wolf had forsaken it's own pride because it knew that there was no reason to hold unto such when it's life were about to end at this very moment.

Adrian stiffened. The image of his own dead eyes in the snow flashed in his mind. He recalled a memory of the monster-girl feasting on his flesh, the goblin girl's sadistic pleasure as they tore him limb from limb even while he pleaded for them to stop.

The more those memories flashed within his mind, the more Adrian felt the strength in his arms slowly leaving him.

' I..I... I can't do it...' eventually, even his own mind found it hard to continue with this anymore.

With a sudden, almost violent release, he let go, shoving the wolf away from him and scrambling backward through the snow, putting several feet between them.

The wolf collapsed onto its side, its body heaving as it dragged ragged, desperate breaths back into its lungs. For a long minute, it was just laying there, its sides pumping, its eyes half-closed.

Adrian didn't leave right away or flee to save himself, instead he simply watched as if a certain part of him wanted to make sure the beast that had just tried to kill him was ok. his own heart was hammering in his chest when he felt that he might've let go too late.

Right then, he didn't know what to do, nor what to feel.

' Come on... You can do it. Get up, please...' Adrian hoped within himself.

As if a divine entity had answered his prayer, Slowly but shakily, the wolf pushed itself back onto its feet.

' Yes! It's alive!' Adrian felt relieved but then he stiffened when he realized that "it was alive again".

His body unconsciously became vigilant again Incase he might've been mistaken and the beast was merely tricking him back then.

His hands unconsciously clenched around the hilt of his sickle. Adrian wasn't a complete fool, the instant he created some distance between him and the wolf, he had intentionally fled in the direction of his sickle, just in case.

The Wolf shook its entire body, it's shuddering body sent a spray of snow and melted saliva flying from its coat. Then it turned its head and looked at him.

The pleading was gone, replaced by a deep, visible wariness. It didn't snarl. It didn't approach. It simply stood there, staring at the human who had beaten it, who had held its life in his hands and then, inexplicably, given it back.

After a silence that seemed to stretch for an eternity, the wolf turned and, with a slight limp, slowly walked away, soon disappearing into the dark maze of tree trunks without a backward glance.

Adrian remained crouched on his knees in the snow, the adrenaline draining from his body, leaving him cold and empty.

He looked at his hands, one still bearing the deep imprint of the wolf's teeth on the wooden bracer. He had won the fight, but he had no words for what had just happened, no understanding of the strange incident that had unfolded within this silent, white woods.

Adrian stood alone in the same spot for awhile, trying to catch his breath and calm himself completely before he would begin his quest for herbs once more.

At the same time, his eyes kept glancing at the the space where the wolf had left from when she vanished.

Recalling what had just transpired between the both of them, that space seemingly felt emptier than the rest of the woods.

He looked fine yes, but that confrontation had left him shaky, his mind was currently filled with different types of emotions such as relief, confusion, and a strange feeling of uncertainty.

He was relived the battle ended with no permanent harm between the both of them but he was confused by what the wolf was implying when it stared at him for so long before leaving.

His uncertainty grew from the fact that he wasn't sure whether it was really a good idea to have left it to leave just like that. Adrian had felt compelled at the time because of the look of surrender and the pleading look on it's face when it's life was on the verge of death but even then, letting such a wild creature roam free.

' What if it ends up attacking someone else instead?' He thought to himself, his uncertainty growing even more. But he let out a sight to calm his nerves.

' What's done is done, I've already let it go so there's no need crying over spilled milk. Hopefully this act of kindness dosen't come back to bite me in the but.' he said to himself, getting up, he stretched his limbs as if to rejuvenate himself.

He was just about to turn back to his abandoned herb basket when he heard a sound that broke the still silence around him.

With his keen ears, he heard the sudden sound of a heavy, soft thud in the distance , as if a sack of grain had fallen to the ground.

' What was that? And why did it come from the exact same direction the wounded wolf left in.' Adrian thought confused before his confusion turned to realization. His eyes widened and his instincts kicked in again,

Because the fight hadn't ended too long ago, his body was still in an active state that allowed him to move instantaneously. He didn't hesitate.

Adrian got up and began plunging through the snow, his legs moving constantly despite the fact that the deep snow hindered his movements.

After a short while, He pushed past a thicket of bare, thorny bushes, and then he stopped dead in his tracks, his breath lodging in his throat when he saw the thing or should he say, creature that had made that sound he heard earlier.

Unlike what he expected, The wolf was gone. Instead, lying naked and unconscious in a patch of snow stained crimson with blood, was a girl.

She looked to be around his age, with a wild mane of hair the color of ash and winter smoke, similar to the grey wolfs fur.

Her milky white skin was pale against the white snowy ground.

Moreover, what really stunned him was when he saw several wounds riddled all over her body.

The same fresh, wounds he had given to the grey wolf with his sickle.

Right now, he saw every single one of them all over her body, whether it was the ones on its neck, face, limbs, back, they were all in the exact same spots on the grey haired girls body.

To add more salt to injury, she was bleeding freely, though faint, she was breathing in ragged gasps that came out as visible white mist in the cold air.

Adrian's mind reeled, struggling to make sense of the stunning sight before him. He found it hard to believe that this same girl was actually the beast he had been battling.

The wolf... No, This girl. The both of them were actually one and the same.

His body stiffened when he recalled what he witnessed earlier, The intelligence in the wolf's eyes back then, the final, pleading look it gave him, it finally made sense to him how a bloodthirsty frenzied creature was capable of such actions.

" But how? Why? "

" How come she's actually?"

The questions swarmed in his head, but they were drowned out by a more urgent sight, the sight of her own blood which was dangerously too much till the point that it was currently pooling around her and melting into the snow.

The shock snapped him out of his reverie and pulled him back to reality.

" I need to tend to it's.. I mean, her wounds need to be tended to unless she might just die this time!" Adrian blurted out in a hurry.

He spun around and sprinted back to where he had dropped his basket, his heart hammering against his ribs.

' Please be here!' Adrian prayed that the herbs he was looking for were in here, the very same ones he had used to tend to the gorgon girls grievous injury.

" Come on! It has to be here." Adrian's agitation grew and he unconsciously dropped to his knees beside it, his hands trembling as he tore through its contents, pulling out handfuls of the very herbs he had just gathered.

He searched and searched, looking for anything that could staunch the bleeding at least.

" Yes! I finally found it!" Adrian rejoiced when he found the herb he was looking for.

Yet he had no mortar, no pestle or anything. Feeling anxious, he did what he did last time, he shoved a messy bunch of the herbs into his palms and began grinding them together with his bare hands, but this time it proved troublesome because of the addition of a herb he used in place of another since he was low on time. the rough fibers tore at his skin, While the sharp, green scent of crushed leaves began filling his nostrils.

Adrian ignored the pain and didn't stop until he had a rough, sticky paste.

With this in hand, He rushed back to the girl, falling to his knees beside her. With a gentleness that differed greatly from his panic, he smeared the primitive mixture over the worst of the slashes on her arm, her shoulder, her neck and even on her face.

The paste was cold and crude, but it was all he had. Seeing her shiver violently, While he wasn't a doctor, he concluded that her full-body tremor that had nothing to do with her wounds but we're due to the bitting cold that ravaged her already weakened body.

With that in mind, he quickly shrugged out of his own thick, fur-lined cloth The cold air bit into his now-bare arms and torso immediately, raising goosebumps, but he didn't care.

He draped the fur cloth over her, covering her modesty and trying to offer some meager warmth against the freezing ground.

He didn't put on his basket because he had already carried it on his back over here, as for his sickle, it was on his waist like always.

Then, with a grunting sound backed by effort, he gathered her into his arms.

Thankfully, she was lighter than he expected. He adjusted his grip, ensuring the fur cloth was wrapped securely around her, and then he began to run, the feeling and situation he found himself in, reminded him of back when he was struggling to deliver Mr Millers herbs to him. Only at this moment, his only goal was to get to the one place that might be able to help her, or one person to be exact.

*****

Back at the clinic, Mr. Miller was wrapping a sprained wrist for an Old man who had sprained it due to slipping on ice, when a frantic, pounding knock echoed from outside the patient room door.

It wasn't the polite tap of a villager that was for sure, with his years of experience, he could easily tell that whosoever it was must be really desperate and anxious.

Frowning, the doctor finished his knot in the blink of an eye.

"Amy." he said to his daughter, who was organizing vials on a shelf. "Please see to Mr. Hemlock. I'll be back shortly."

" Oh... Ok father." Amy nodded and stepped away from the shelves to assist the patient with his needs.

Mr Miller opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, his professional demeanor hardening into immediate apprehension the moment he saw Adrian. The boy was shirtless and shivering, his chest heaving, his arms cradling a small, bundled form. And spilling out from the bundle of Adrian's fur cloth was a long, tangled sweep of hair in a shade of grey that wan't supposed to belong to a human youth.

Mr Miller was surprised to see Adrian so soon since he had asked him to meet him after sun down but. When his eyes landed on the creature in his arm's, his nose twitched then he stiffened for a moment before his expression darkened.

(AN: Would appreciate you all dropping your thoughts in the community)

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