Chapter 3: Chapter 3

The small cave that the wolves had made home had a slanted floor, and formed in a small outcropping near a stream. It was late spring, and the temperature was around 16 degrees, a comfortable day to explore.

(Temperature in C).

Most of the adults were out hunting, so the pups decided to explore around the cave, pouncing on anything that moved.

Roth seemed to be in a good mood, chattering inside of Ash's head nonstop.

^Bro, look at that tree, it is huge! That thing has to be the biggest oak tree ever!^

Everything seemed larger than in their past world, and not just because Ash was small. The ferns stood nearly a meter tall, but even these massive plants could not reach the shoulders of the adult wolves, who seemed to be nearly a meter and a half tall.

A play fight broke out between Mimosa and Birch, the two pups circling each other, looking for an opportunity to close in and tackle the other. Mimosa lunged forwards, but as Birch dodged right, she shifted her weight and tackled him.

'Hmm? The wolves seem pretty intelligent, Mimosa just feigned that attack to trick him into dodging.'

"Awoooo!"

Holding Birch down, Mimosa let out a little victory howl before backing up and letting Birch stand back up. Seeming to not have had enough of fighting, she turned to face Ash.

^Get ready bro, looks like she's coming for us next. This pup really is a handful.^

Mimosa charged at Ash, attempting to scare him into dodging the same she did to Birch, but Ash was prepared. He slowly backed up waiting for Mimosa to approach before jumping forward for a head-on collision with her. His larger size compared to her allowed him to wrestle her down before backing off, claiming victory.

Almost all of the pups were annoyed with Mimosa's constant annoyance, and were happy when Ash won, surrounding him as if to congratulate him.

Seeing the cute little pups' happy smiles melted Roth's heart.

^Bro, we have to protect these little furballs. They are too cute to die.^

'Agreed bro. Our parents seem to be rather irresponsible, so I guess we should take care of the little bundles of love in their place.'

Ash turned his head to watch Oak trying to climb up and over a branch, but falling over backwards and tumbling around instead.

Oak stood back up, examining the branch, before hugging his legs around it and shimmering up the branch.

Soon the sun began to set, and the pups went back into the cave to wait for their pack to return, their empty stomachs grumbling.

'Are all wolf packs this way, or why does our pack always take so long to come back from a hunt?'

^I'm guessing that prey must be scarce right now, but it is spring, so our pack should be thriving right now instead of running low on food. Maybe there is competition of some sort?^

After a few hours of waiting, the rest of the pack returned, but they seemed to be quite dispirited, and they didn't bring any meat back with them.

^Hey, weren't there eight wolves before? Only 7 of them came back!^

After examining the group, Ash realized that one of the older males was missing from the group. The litter's mother seemed to be the most depressed out of the pack, but she still walked down to the pups to let them feed.

'I wonder, was that our father that is gone? Our mother seems to be the most sad out of all of the wolves…'

All of the pups gathered around their mother to feed, but their hunger was barely satisfied. She was running out of milk, it was time for the pups to start eating meat.

The next day, the pack didn't go hunting, instead lazing around the cave with a slight look of fear on their faces as they looked out into the woods.

'There must be something dangerous in the woods right now, looks like we will have to go hungry until whatever it is leaves and lets us hunt again.'

The pups began sparring with each other again, and Oak climbed up a small tree.

'Wow, he is getting really good at climbing. That could be useful for us in the future, we can ambush our prey by hiding in a tree!'

Ash walked over to the tree and tried to climb it, to no avail.

The bark of the tree was too smooth to get a good grip on it, and Ash's paws kept slipping on it every time he tried.

'Dang, this is impossible! How is Oak able to climb up the tree so easily?'

Oak gazed down at Ash, then hopped down from the tree. He walked over to another tree, this one having a much rougher bark.

^ This is a white oak tree, the rough bark should make it a bit easier to climb.^

Oak climbed up the tree slowly, as if showing Ash how to climb easier. He gripped the tree with his front paws, then heaved himself up, placing his hind paws on the tree just below his front paws. He then lunged upwards, gripping as high on the tree as possible with his front paws, repeating this until he reached a branch he could stand on.

Ash attempted to imitate Oak's actions, but his legs still slipped on the bark, and he came tumbling down before he could get even a meter off the ground.

^Hey bro, let me try.^

Roth and Ash had recently discovered something that would prove to be extremely useful. They could swap which consciousness had control over their body. Ash seemed to have the upper hand in their relationship, and could take over control over the body at any time, whereas Roth needed Ash to permit him to control the body in order to take the control seat.

Being able to directly control the body was a lot faster than relaying instructions, and Roth's seeming infinite knowledge of the general world would prove useful in situations that require fast thinking.

'Alright bro, let's see you climb this thing!'

Roth backed away from the tree, looking at it with a face filled with determination. After a few seconds, he ran towards the tree, using his front paws to grip the rough bark, bounding up the tree before perching on the lowest branch.

Fern, who was rolling around by the stream, wandered over to the pair of tree climbing wolves and looked up curiously, tilting her head.

Ash metaphorically smiled at the cute pup, but his thoughts were interrupted.

^Uh… bro, how do we get down? I don't know if I said this before, but I really don't like heights. Why did those branch look so low when we were on the ground?!?^

Roth looked helplessly at Oak, and the pup seemed amused by the fear in his eyes. Oak then hopped down from the tree with one big jump.

^Uhh... How about no. I am going to break my legs! This was a horrible idea! Ash, this is your job now, it was your idea to climb the tree in the first place^ Roth said, abandoning control of their body to Ash.

Ash took a deep breath, then jumped down from the tree, his legs acting like springs, absorbing the force of the fall.

'That wasn't so bad, what were you so scared of? We should learn how to climb better, it will probably let us hunt for food easier'

^Well, you are in charge of that then. I won't be climbing a tree again soon.^

The day was coming to an end, and all of the pups returned to the cave to rest for the night. The next day when they went outside, Fern joined Oak and Ash in climbing trees, and the three pups spent much of the next week struggling to clamber up trees. The adults would go out hunting every day, but they never seemed to bring back enough food, and their loss of muscle was obvious to the naked eye.

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