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Veðrfölnir had wandered away from his siblings on purpose. He wasn’t going to go far, he told himself. Just far enough away that their voices thinned out behind him, swallowed up by the flowers and the bright, warm stretch of unfamiliar land beyond the scent-markers he was very much not supposed to cross. He knew that. Of course he knew that, but he was not a baby! He was seven months old and practically grown, and if there was something dangerous lurking out here, then someone had to find it first.

Preferably him.

So when the ruckus reached his ears — splashing and squealing breaking over the riverbank — Veðrfölnir froze with one paw lifted and his whole body tensing. His ears speared forward and his tail rose behind his back. At last, something! Some beast in the water, perhaps, some ugly river-monster with too many teeth and a taste for wolves that he could beat. His heart gave a fierce, delighted kick against his ribs as he lowered himself and crept closer through the grasses, fiery-orange coat flashing between the flowers despite his best effort to be sneaky.

He burst through the greenery ready to snarl.

And instead found… a pup.

A pup.

Veðrfölnir stopped so abruptly his paws skidded in the damp earth. His face twisted at once, disappointment crashing hard into suspicion. This was not a monster. This was not even a very impressive threat. It was just some boy splashing around at the river’s edge.

What? Veðrfölnir snapped, as though the boy had personally insulted him just by merely existing. He stomped closer, glaring down at the water, then at the stranger, then back at the water again, as if perhaps the monster might still crawl out and provide him an opportunity to look brave and frightening.

You sound like something dying, he accused, nose wrinkling. Why are you making all that noise?

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