Bad Wolf

Bad Wolf by Jwolaroth Ruk

This is a fairy tale, meaning a story told mostly by fairies, brownies, and other fey.

It has been titled both *Bad Wolf* and *The Multiple Morals of Mischievous Eyv* depending on who's telling. Most non-fey don't know this fable, so I thought I'd pen it. Enjoy.

-Jwolaroth Ruk

~Bad Wolf~

Once upon a time, deep in the forests of T'nanshi, there lived a young wolf named Eyv. Eyv, like most wolves, belonged to a sizable pack. He was a very curious wolf who lived to play. Unfortunately, he had few cousins his age to play with. To make matters worse, no one even allowed Eyv to hunt. Alpha only let him scout.

Eyv would scout ahead of the pack for food, bored to whines. One day, he had the clever idea to scare the pack. Watching them scatter would prove much fun. However, everything he tried failed. He tried making scary noises, but that didn't work. He tried jumping out at other pack members in surprise, but that stopped working after just the first try. Eyv needed to come up with something more devious.

One day, he found a young treant while scouted ahead. Eyv got a mischievous glint in his eyes. He knew the rest of the pack stood too far away to tell what the treant was. Eyv barked loudly in a way that meant "Human!"

He raced to watch the pack as they scattered and ran. They ran for fear of death, certain they would be slaughtered mercilessly by some spell or arrow.

Alpha soon noticed Eyv rolling on the ground, tail wagging, consumed by the hilarity of it all. Alpha forced Eyv to eat last as punishment, but Eyv didn't mind. After all, some of the pack had scattered so fast they ran into trees! It was worth it, Eyv thought.

Days passed, during which Alpha lifted Eyv's punishment. Eyv tried to scare the pack again and again, but failed. The pack knew the scent of a human. They would not fall for that silly trick twice.

One day, Eyv scouted farther ahead than usual. This time something strange caught his attention. He could smell something vaguely reptilian. While sniffing along the ground, he bumped into a statue... or rather, a petrified half-elf. Cocking his head to one side, Eyv again got that mischievous glint. Searching the area, he found long-dead bodies of some adventurers, likely slaughtered by the medusa. Eyv pulled off some of their ragged clothing with his maw. He dressed the statue up to look like it still lived. He then began pulling at the vines growing up the statue until they only attached to the base of the statuefs legs. Eyv snuck off, waiting for the pack to show up.

Eyv walked in from the side, pretending to have scouted in a different direction. Beta saw the statue and barked "Human!" ...but Alpha realized he could smell no human, only dead things. He calmed Beta down and the pack prepared to keep moving. At that, Eyv pulled on one vine after the other, causing the statue to jerk towards them as if walking clumsily. Alpha's ears shot forward in horror. He barked the command to scatter! The pack fled.

They returned to the scene to rescue Eyv only to find little Eyv wagging his tale and looking happy. It didn't take Alpha long to figure out what happened. Eyv again was forced to eat last. As before, Eyv decided it was more than worth it.

Weeks passed. Eyv tried any number of outlandish scare attempts, but could never quite out-do the statue ploy.

Soon, Eyv would have to split off and help form a new pack. The current pack had gotten too large and Eyv had begun to grow up. He knew he had only one last chance to pull off a big prank...

While scouting ahead, he found a vegepygmie. At first he thought it was a human. After all, wolves can't see color well. He soon realized it was too small, and sprouted leaves. It also smelled like a mixture between sap and decay. He watched as the lone vegepygmie tended to some corpses of humanoids that plant matter now grew in. Eyv could see one of the corpses moving. The plant matter slowly tried to bring it to life, turning the dead body into another vegepygmie.

Eyv snuck about until he found something shocking: a wolf corpse with the same plant matter growing in it! They were making wolf plant-things!

Eyv rushed back to the pack. He knew they would never believe that he saw evil plants. After all his lies, they would think it mere trickery.

...besides, wolves canft talk...

So Eyv did the only thing he knew to. He let out the bark meaning "Human!"

Just to make certain Eyv lied, Alpha ran forward to see. Alpha peered at the thing moving in the distance. He quickly realized it was too small to be a human. As before, Alpha smelled no living human scent on the wind. "Another baby treant," Alpha thought. Alpha ruled that the pack would continue on and avoid the sacred baby tree-keeper out of respect. Alpha admitted that the treant acted odd, but he was too tired to investigate. If it still acted odd in a few days, he would take a closer look.

At their next waking, the pack was horrified. All of the wild game in the area had been assimilated into plant matter. The deer turned green and ambled about with coils of vines instead of muscle. The vegepygmies even assimilated small game like rabbits!

The pack knew they could never defeat such a force. Had they acted earlier, when there was just one, they could have fought it. But now, they had no chance.

As wolves only eat meat, they were forced to move on to new territory. Ah, but the oddly aggressive vegepygmies had spread their influence wide. The wolves found no food for many days. By the time they escaped the plant-things' domain, several in the pack had died from starvation, likely to turn into plant-things themselves.

The surviving pack members turned on the bad wolf, Eyv. They forced him out of the pack, never allowing him to return.

Eyv lived out the rest of his days as a sad, lone wolf.

Moral of the story?

• crossed out* Never lie abou
• crossed out* Procrastination only leads t
• crossed out* Wolves are more afraid of you th

Eat your vegetables!