Chapter 4 "Candor"

Candor

    Sage was looking at me thinking of something so I broke the silence between us. “Well I don’t really know you personally, as your own wolf. What do you like to do?” I ask her. I really don’t know that much about her come to think of it. Sage is just a mysterious wolf I am meeting pretty much. How could I consider her a friend if I only know her name?

“Well I love hunting and sneaking away to look at the stars here,” she pauses for a moment and looks at me. “I now like to come look at the stars and to come meet you.” She smiled a white shiny smile that made me smile too. “What do you like to do?”

“I love to hang out with my best friend, Xavier. He always has my back. We never keep anything from each other.” I start and when I say this Sage's eyes get wide. “What?” I ask very confused by her eyes.

“Have you told him about us because if my pack finds out I will never be able to come out here again!” She almost yells at me.

“No, no. Calm down, I did not tell him.” I reassure her. Her stiff stance grew more loose when I said that. “Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you like that.” I bow my head, but she spes closer to me and nudges my head back up with her nose.

“It is ok. I should have trusted you. Now please close your eyes.” I obeyed. “Now step away from the cliffs.” I obeyed again and I estimated, in my mind, that I was at least a few yards from the cliffs. “Do you know one other thing I like to do?”

“What?” I ask.

“Wrestle.” When she said this I felt her small body hit me. I opened my eyes to her having me pinned.

“Hey!” I laugh.

    “This one got ya didn’t she?” She laughed. She playfully bit me. The bite was soft so it didn’t hurt.

“Oh did you?” I ask. When the words come off my muzzle I jump up sending her flying. She lands in a small heap limp. “Sage?” I call her name. She didn’t move. “Sage!” I call her name more than a question. She still lay limp. I rush over to her and touch her fur. I felt her breathing, but then a small body of fur fell on me. Sage had leapt up and was on top of me now.

“This little wolf is smarter than she looks.” I smile at her and laugh. She gets off of me and brushes herself off. I roll over and look at the sun. I had to get back to the pack soon. This close to the alpha meeting and me leaving them to go somewhere they didn’t know would seem odd. I hoped Sage would understand.

“Hey, Sage, I better get going. This close to the alpha meeting and both of us leaving would seem very peculiar.” I say to her. She turns to me.

“I understand completely I better get back myself. They are gonna think I died.” She laughs and walks down the hill. I watch her leave and then start to move myself. The bright blue sky today was magnificent. The thick trees gave me shade as I trotted through the forest. I could here the leaves underneath my feet crunch. My ears flickered every time. I picked up my pace running now, not as fast as I could go, but I was moving. I cut into the deep valley below our den. I could see the tree the marked it from here. The wind started to pick up as I ran. When I arrived everyone sat there in a small circle speaking with one another. I wagged my tail happy to them all. Upon my arrival everyone turned to me. Xavier had an unhappy look on his face. Aphrodite had a very happy grin on her face. Uh oh., she has a plan. It doesn’t look to good.

“Hello, Candor. Where have you been?” Hope piped up.

“Nowhere really I just padded down through the woods. It is so beautiful today.”

“Why yes it is Candor. Now please come sit down we have strict business to talk about.” Aphrodite ordered me. I hate when she does that. I really could take the alpha spot if I wanted it bad enough, but I don’t want it. I walked over to the spot she told me and sat down with a thump. Some dust sprung up and danced in the air until it reached the ground again. “So, Candor before you arrived we were going over our plan to get food.” Aphrodite started.

“Food!” I yelled and stood happily. I turned around and then sat back down happily.

“Yes, Candor please pay attention. Now Nightshadow, their alpha, is going to come with the only other adult wolf in the pack. The female and the pup will be left at the den alone. While I go to the alpha and distract him you three will grab the pup. Threaten to kill him unless she comes with you. We will keep her hostage. When you are done two of you come to me and we will tell the alpha everything. Got it?” The words ran from her tongue. My eyes grew wide not believing her. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hurt Sage. I knew if Aphrodite knew anything about us meeting it would be the end of both of us. I must warn Sage.

Aphrodite walked away from the cluster of us. Her tail wagged as she walked to the den’s tree marker. I sighed to myself. This was going to go down very badly. I don’t want Sage to be mad at me, but all the same the food we would get would be so good. I am practically starving everyday while Sage and her pack is stuffing themselves thick. Come to think of it though she did bring me food. I bet if we just joined the packs or something then this could be avoided. I better talk to Aphrodite. I left Hope and Xavier cluelessly sitting together in the sun and padded over to the thin tree trunk.

    Aphrodite looked at me then back down to the valley below. She was scheming in her mind I could tell. I just came out and said, “Do we have to do this?” She turned her head to me with a puzzled look. Her dark green eyes searched mine as if to say, why are you questioning me, or this is what we are doing so shut up, I would like to avoid either one, but she didn’t say that. She sighed.

    “Candor is there any other option? The pack is being held together by a thread. We can’t keep living on tiny meals. I didn’t want to do this either, but it is our only choice to survive.”

    “Oh really by making the Bison suffer? That is our solution. Oh yes just make the our pack starve to death because we are so much better then them!” I start to raise my voice. I had my head held higher than normal. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Xavier and Hope watching me. Hope’s face displayed confusion and a little horror. Xavier didn’t show anything. I had never seen his face in that particular way before. It was new to me.

“Candor calm down. Why so defensive? We aren’t going to hurt her and we aren’t going to take all their food.” She responds to my tone much calmer than myself.    Xavier steps forward.

“Aphrodite let me take a walk with him. Maybe we can take care of this behavior with some bro to bro conversation.” He su. Aphrodite nodded to him and he headed into the direction of Sage’s safe place. I followed not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

We walked in the woods. My paws started to hurt from stepping on all the leaves and twigs. Silence engulfed us for a long time. I didn’t know what to say.  We had made our way into Saddle. I saw birds fly into nests and squirrels scurry up trees. Sage likes to chase squirrels. I looked at Xavier. He had his eyes forward. He had something on his mind and he was headed to a specific place. Where? I could feel the wind picking up and it blew a nice breeze. The sun was creating a pretty halo on the mountains. Xavier stopped for a moment and continued to look forward. It was kind of creepy. He looked around and then turned to me.

“Do you know why I brought you here?” Xavier asks.

“No not really.” I answered confused.

“I know about you and Sage.” He blurted out rather loudly. I felt like exploding into a million pieces right then.

“You know what!” I ask him again yelling.

“I know about you and Sage, the bison wolf, meeting each other. I learned about ya’ll two nights ago.” He explained to me. “I haven’t told anyone, Candor, don’t be nervous. I am your best friend. I would never stab you in the back like that.” His comment made me feel much better, but the kidnapping Sage  still clung to my tossing and turning stomach. I smiled and push the thought aside. Sage should understand that we need food. On the good side we aren’t going to hurt her. It will only last a few days, then when everything is good she will be set free.

“I was going to tell you, but when you invited Hope to the river that day my plans got messed up.” I try to explain.

“It is ok. I don’t care. I know, if Aphrodite knew about it you and Sage she would kill both of you. You were very nervous about it. It is ok I completely understand.” He smiled at me and big goofy smile. I smiled back. This is why he was my best friend.

“You know she brought me food, a large chunk of elk.” I bragged a little as I started walking back towards the den.

“Lucky! I would kill to have a good piece of meat right now.”

“Well I mean I needed it more. I also deserved it more.” I joked with him.

“Oh really, well I think the one who gets back to the den first should deserve it.” He challenged.

“You on.” I remark and we start sprinting at the same time. Wind blew past my face, the trees were only a blur. Xavier stayed in front of me a couple steps for most of the way back. When we were almost home I used what was left in the tank and sprint right past him. One we had arrived Aphrodite and Hope looked at us both like we were insane.

“Um, so did the talk go by well?” Aphrodite asks us.

“Very well. I feel much better, but at the same time extremely exhausted.” I fell down at her paws tired. I felt Xavier lay next to me. I could hear his quick breaths. Hope and Aphrodite just laughed at the two of us and lay a little ways from us. I fell asleep right then and there and I wasn’t going to wake up until I had too.