Wolf!?"
Virginia's cry brought Wolf out of his trance. For the past half hour or so he had been watching a furry white rabbit hop around in their backyard. He was crouched behind their bushes, keeping his breath as shallow as possible, so as to not frighten the rabbit away. Occasionally the rabbit would grab one of the vegetables and scurry back to its resting spot under one of the many trees that were scattered around their yard.
Virginia came to the back door carrying the baby, looking angry. "I've been calling you for the past five minutes, Wolf! I need you to go to the castle and pick something up for me. And take the baby, I'm sure my father would like to spend some time with him." Wolf nodded as she turned and went back inside. He scratched his temple and looked at the rabbit, who was nibbling on a carrot. "Huff, I'll see you later."
Not being very far from the castle, Wolf decided to walk. The baby cooed softly in the pack he had strapped to the front of his body. Along the way he pointed out to his son the different plants and animals that they passed. He wasn't paying any attention to the direction in which they were headed, until after about an hour into their journey, he realized they were lost.
As if sensing something was wrong the baby started crying. "Don't worry my little chop. I know exactly where we are." Wolf said, trying to soothe the now wailing child. "Cripes," he whispered to himself. "I suppose I don't know exactly where we are." He turned in a circle and scratched his brow. "We'll just turn around and go back to the way we came. But huff puff, which way was that?"
Just then he heard a rustling in the bushes. He let out a low growl as a warning and clutched the baby to his chest. "Who's there?" he called, but recieved no answer. The rustling continued, and he looked around for a place to hide the baby, incase he needed to fight.
"I said, who's there?!" he called a little louder this time. Out of the bushes stepped a woman. She was old, and looked weary. And she held a striking resemblence to Acorn the Dwarf.
"Oh, hello ma'am," he said stepping towards her. "I was wondering, if maybe you could provide me with some assistence?"
When she didn't answer or even look up, he reached out and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and swung around with her cane in the air ready to strike. Wolf took a step back and threw his hands in the air to show he meant no harm. She looked at him through her one good eye.
"Are you trying to scare me to death? Don't you know to not sneak up on people?! I have a weak heart, you know. I could have dropped right here, then what would you have done? Huh?"
Wolf smiled a little at her, "I'm sorry ma'am," he said.
"What?"
"I'm sorry!"
"Huh?"
"I said I'm SORRY!" he shouted.
The old woman scowled at him, "No need to yell boy, I'm not deaf. You have no manners do ya?" She eyed the baby then, "Who's that?"
The baby had stopped crying, and was now sleeping, although how he slept through the shouting was beyond Wolf. "My son, William." Wolf replied proudly.
"Cute. Looks good enough to eat, eh?" She chuckled and nudged Wolf with her cane. He just smiled and nodded.
The old woman turned to leave, and Wolf followed behind. "I was wondering if you could help me find my way back to the main road? I was on my way to King Wendell's castle, and I got lost."
The woman stopped and turned to him.
"What are you doing so far off the main road? It's not safe out here in these woods, certainly not safe for children."
Wolf looked at her quizzically, "I said I got lost on my way --"
"Huh? Your lips are movin' but there's nothin' comin' out." She interrupted.
Wolf opened his mouth to speak but she turned on her heals and started walking again.
"If you want, you can come home with me. I don't walk and talk at the same time, causes me to trip. Never was much for coordination. I'm not gonna stop and waste my time trying to explain things to a poorly-mannered man, or whatever it is you are, who will just forget what I said. So come on if you're comin, I got things to do and pe-er, food to cook."
At the mention of the word 'food' Wolf's ears perked up.
"Where is that mangy wolf!" Tony Lewis paced back and forth in front of King Wendell. He'd been waiting for Wolf for over two hours now. "Virginia said he would be here by ten! What if something happened? What if something happened and he had the baby with him?!"
"Calm down, Antony!" Wendell replied, crunching on an apple. "Now I don't have much faith in Wolf either, but you and I both know he would never let anything happen to his son. Or Virginia."
"Yeah, yeah you're right. I just... why isn't he here yet?"
"Maybe he stopped to eat."
"I'm going to look for him." Tony turned on his heals and rushed out of the castle.
"What?! Hey, Antony, wait!" Wendell jumped up from his throne and followed Tony out to the stables.
Wolf scratched at his temple and looked around cautiously. "I have a feeling we're not going to get back to the main road anytime soon. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go with this woman. Maybe we should turn around. But she has food and I am - " He ended that sentence with a gasp.
"Oh, cripes!" he was standing in front of the largest gingerbread house he had ever seen. Realizing he was drooling, he wiped his mouth and followed the woman inside. There was a table and chairs, a couch and recliner, and cabinets. There wasn't much by way of food around the inside, but the actual house made up for that.
"Aw, suck an elf!" the old woman's shout brought Wolf out of his reverie. "I've forgotten my magic mushrooms. Now I'm going to have to go all the way back to the swamp. Unless I can find a strong, young man, much faster and younger, and quicker and younger than I to go for me, since he's younger and can move at a quicker pace."
Wolf blinked. "Good luck with that."
The old woman hmphed and slammed the door behind her. He could hear her grumbling loudly through the window.
"Are you hungry, William? I am ravenous." He walked outside and looked around. "I don't think she'd mind if we took a little bit out of her house. Do you?" The baby was still asleep. "Me either." Wolf walked around to the back of the cottege and broke off a piece of the backdoor handle, which was made out of licorice. Finishing that he broke off a small piece of the door, and before he knew it the whole thing was gone. "Whoops."
"You know Antony, I've been wanting to go on a real adventure again. Although I was a dog for most of the last one, and ran the risk of staying that way, due to your stupidity, and the fact that I was almost killed, again due to your stupidity -- "
"Get to your point, Wendell."
"Yes, sorry. What I was going to say was, I had a pretty good time trying to save the kingdoms. Didn't you?"
"Oh, lovely." Tony shifted in his perch upon the horse, trying to find a more comfortable position. "I enjoyed being sucked into another dimension, having my daughter get cursed by gypsies, almost getting killed numerous times by trolls and crazy huntsmen. And having to murder my own wife..." His voice trailed off.
"I'm sorry, Antony." The rest of the trip was taken in silence.
"I wonder if Wolf has made it to the castle yet. They really do need telephones in the kingdoms. I could make a fortune..." Virginia schemed.
By now the baby had woken up and was smacking contentedly on a piece of chocolate window shutter. Wolf had eaten through the back porch and was lying on the ground groaning with a stomach ache. He was moaning so loudly he didn't hear the woman come up behind him. Until she screeched.
"What have you done to my HOUSE?!"
Wolf sat bolt upright and tried to stammer out an answer, "I.. I.. I was hungry." he mumbled.
"You were hungry?! You were hungry?!"
Wolf furrowed his brow confused that she'd heard him, but the thought vanished from his mind as she came after him with her cane. He ducked out of the way and picked up the baby, holding him in front of him as protection, knowing the woman wouldn't hit William. Hey, he's just a soft cuddly little cub at heart, after all.
The old woman lowered her cane and grabbed Wolf by the ear instead, dragging him into the house. She pushed him toward the kitchen chair, "Sit! Don't move!" She bent over her stove and cranked it up full blast. Wolf gulped.
"You people really need to look into having some other form of transportation. Like cars, or a bus or something. Because there's only so much one person can take of this." Tony complained as he shifted for the thousandth time in the saddle of his horse.
Wendell chuckled, "Yeah, but wouldn't it cause polution? You yourself said how smoggy it was in New York. You know I'd really love to go there one day and take in all the sites. See where exactly it is you come from. And I'm sure Virginia would love to show Wolf and the baby."
"Yeah, or we could go to England and you can see what the Queen rides from place to place. To Hell with bouncing castles, I'm building me an airplane."
They had been riding for a little over an hour, staying strictly on the main road. In front of them and off to the left on the field was a little cart. As they approached they noticed a dwarf lying in the back taking a nap. Tony realized who it was and called out to him.
"Acorn! Acorn, it's me, Tony!"
Acorn reluctently opened his eyes, "Oh, hello. Haven't gotten yourself into anymore trouble, 'ave you?"
Tony shook his head and smiled proudly. "Nope. How about you? What have you been up to?"
Acorn jumped down from his cart and walked towards the front. "Little bit of this and that. I figured it was safe to come out of 'iding, I'm staying with my mum in a cottage, just inside those woods there. Would you like to come meet her? I'm sure she's home from shopping by now."
Wendell looked a bit nervous. "I don't know, we really shouldn't stop. It'll be dark soon." He didn't want to go into the dark woods with a convicted felon.
"Oh, come on Wendy, it'll give you a chance to get off your high horse," Tony said with a laugh.
Wendell gave him a sarcastic smile and said all right. They followed Acorn into the woods, Wendell was still a bit nervous, but trusted that Acorn wouldn't do anything with Tony around.
"Wha.. What are you going to do?" Wolf asked. He would have bolted right then, but he didn't know his way out of the woods, and didn't want to end up farther in and lost even more.
"I'm going to cook me some dinner!" She brought out a large roasting pan and started to fill it with vegetables. "Why don't you go in and sit down in the living room. I don't need you right now." Wolf nodded and did what he was told. "And don't eat anything!"
He sat on the couch and watched her nervously out of the corner of his eye. She filled the pan with water and set it inside the oven. He remembered when he had first gone to New York to find Wendell, and how he'd almost cooked Virginia's poor old grandmother that very same way. He started to whine low, but stopped abruptly when the old woman glanced at him.
"Come here," she said to him sternly. He stood up quickly and started toward her. "Leave the baby there, he'll only get in the way."
Wolf didn't want to leave his son all alone, but didn't have much say in the matter. He sat him down on the couch and handed him another piece of chocolate he'd had inside of his pants pocket.
"You stay here William, I'll be right over there." he whispered. He gulped again and walked towards the old woman, expecting the worse.
"It's a stupid idea, just stupid! How am I supposed to do that? I can't exactly get phone lines all the way to the nine kingdoms. I'm not even sure how it's done in the Tenth. Give it up, Virginia."
Drawing nearer to the cottege, the three travelers heard shouts coming from inside. The three looked at each other and jumped down from their respective rides and ran to the front door.
"No! No stop it!" came a shout from inside.
"That sounds like Wolf," Tony said. Acorn rushed to the door and pushed it open.
"I said stop it! You do not make porkchops like that! Who ever heard of boiling pork! You're supposed to fry them, or bake them! Boiling takes all the flavor --" he stopped short when he saw Tony, Wendell, and Acorn standing in the doorway. "Hello Tony, Wendy.. little man."
"Wait until Virginia hears about this," Tony threatened, and Wolf whimpered.
