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“The Charitable Pact of a Soft Hearted Fool” by Slip-Wolf
A lie told for over a thousand years is still a lie and the dead don’t speak for themselves. Unitl now. This story is the accurate retelling of a heinous crime against lupine kind buried in a vicious slander. Passed down with all lies is the living thread of truth, waiting for the light of day and the warmth of den.
Here’s what the truth tastes like.
Today’s story is “The Charitable Pact of A Soft Hearted Fool” by friend-of-the-fireplace Slip-Wolf. He’s still plugging away at his first novel and you can find excerpts from his short work at https://www.furaffinity.net/user/slip-wolf/.
Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.
Transcript
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,
Speaker:and Today’s story is
Speaker:“The Charitable Pact
Speaker:of A Soft Hearted Fool”
Speaker:by friend-of-the-fireplace Slip
Speaker:-Wolf who can be found @Slip_Wolf.
Speaker:He’s still plugging away at his first novel and you can find excerpts from his short work at https://www.furaffinity.net/user/slip-wolf/.
Speaker:Please enjoy“The Charitable Pact
Speaker:of a Soft-Hearted Fool”
Speaker:by Slip-Wolf They no longer tell tales of the nobility or mercy of wolves.
Speaker:Too few wonder why.
Speaker:As time passes we should wonder rather,
Speaker:did they ever? Full stomachs are dangerous.
Speaker:With the spring buck devoured, your guard drops, your senses dull and your respect for the order of things wanes.
Speaker:You feel things you shouldn’t feel.
Speaker:To live long, one must always live
Speaker:as though hungry.
Speaker:Under a chill autumn sun, our well-sated wolf came across a wandering child,
Speaker:bearing a straw gullet of food.
Speaker:Knowing her kind feared his,
Speaker:but slaked by playful curiosity,
Speaker:the wolf stalked close and growled in question,
Speaker:expecting her to be startled.
Speaker:Much to his surprise
Speaker:the human cub greeted him warmly,
Speaker:showing no fear, whatsoever.
Speaker:Confused by her brazen nature, the wolf asked about the food she bore, learning that the girl's sick eldest was too weak to gather her own victuals.
Speaker:This was a noble deed in the wolf's estimation;
Speaker:wolves take care of their own old and sick, after all.
Speaker:But warmed as he was to the girl's good intentions,
Speaker:he found his whiskers crinkling with worry.
Speaker:A cub of any stock was foolish to travel the woods alone,
Speaker:especially bereft of caution as this one was.
Speaker:Even the spring buck he’d dispatched that morning for hunger’s sake
Speaker:knew when to run.
Speaker:The wolf knew most predators in the forest besides himself
Speaker:and realized the peril she was in.
Speaker:His soft heart swelled for all that could befall the pale creature,
Speaker:almost, but not quite a hairless wolf cub to his dulled senses.
Speaker:She was sure to be consumed if she wandered alone like this.
Speaker:So he bade farewell,
Speaker:and scouted the crooked path ahead for pitfalls before coming to a decrepit wooden den
Speaker:where he suspected the girl's eldest languished.
Speaker:It was dark, hanging with the sour musk of unworldly miasma.
Speaker:Human places smell unnatural,
Speaker:but this place was fouled with untold corruptions of the formerly pristine earth beneath his paws.
Speaker:Our wolf in his sweet worry,
Speaker:failed to heed his nose.
Speaker:He entered silently,
Speaker:finding the cub's eldest alone.
Speaker:She was stooped and bent and gnarled with countless years, like a fracturing tree,
Speaker:her shuffles baying with pain.
Speaker:Black vestments coiled about her like soot slipped from flame.
Speaker:She was startled at first,
Speaker:for unlike her young,
Speaker:she was wise enough to fear any predator.
Speaker:But she had no urge to beg for her life,
Speaker:and confronted him with hissed curses.
Speaker:In low snorts, the predator conveyed that he intended no harm.
Speaker:He had come on a mission of mercy,
Speaker:one concerning her granddaughter.
Speaker:Listening with senses no other human had claim to,
Speaker:the witch could feel the throb of his soft heart for human children.
Speaker:A cunning sliver of guile stirred her guts and a plan hatched deep within her remorseless shell.
Speaker:Soft hearts are easily manipulated by crafty beasts
Speaker:and this eldest was the craftiest of human stock.
Speaker:Her silver tongue cunningly went to work on our wolf’s perked ears,
Speaker:spinning falsehoods like spider silk.
Speaker:Like all deceptions, her tale
Speaker:contained enough sweet, sorrowful nectars of truth to conceal a few wicked lies.
Speaker:The poor granddaughter had no fear of the forest, you see.
Speaker:The innocent girl,
Speaker:defenseless and trusting as she was
Speaker:would soon fall prey to the ravaging threats lurking beneath its’ boughs.
Speaker:Except for her grandmother,
Speaker:the poor girl was all alone.
Speaker:Holding scent of the granddaughter's unspoiled,
Speaker:innocence, the wolf readily agreed.
Speaker:The girl needed to be schooled in the pitiless dangers out there
Speaker:in the lush groves and copses,
Speaker:harsh lessons which the wolf had striven to teach his own cubs.
Speaker:With his sympathies ensnared,
Speaker:the grandmother carefully whispered her plea.
Speaker:Sacrifice would christen the girl with the knowledge of danger,
Speaker:the most powerful knowledge she could have.
Speaker:And the grandmother knew well
Speaker:of sacrifices. She begged the wolf to end her life.
Speaker:She had so little time left as it was, beset by the unending agonies of age,
Speaker:while her granddaughter risked
Speaker:her own sweet vitality every time she traversed these dark woods.
Speaker:When the old woman’s feeble life was spent, the granddaughter would have no need to come to her anymore.
Speaker:More importantly,
Speaker:the sickening knowledge that some creature of the forest was responsible for finishing her Grandmother,
Speaker:and not time's sadistic ticks,
Speaker:would forever relieve the child of her ignorance.
Speaker:Secretly in her black heart the grandmother plotted,
Speaker:malevolent intentions buried under practiced charms.
Speaker:On her wrinkled surface,
Speaker:quivering lips and moist eyes begged for grace.
Speaker:Our wolf did whimper,
Speaker:touched by sorrow in the witch's pleas.
Speaker:Such selfless,
Speaker:honorable sacrifice the grandmother offered.
Speaker:What exacting deliverance from ignorance the girl would receive!
Speaker:With worry for human children twisting nooses inside,
Speaker:he foolishly relented.
Speaker:The grandmother thanked him dearly,
Speaker:drank a bitter draught and smiled icily as she slipped peacefully away.
Speaker:Keeping his word, the already sated wolf reluctantly gnashed her gnarled husk,
Speaker:painful to his already working stomach as
Speaker:winter-dried rot,
Speaker:before settling to wait,
Speaker:his shape indistinct
Speaker:amongst chewed bones and stinking rags.
Speaker:The girl arrived to find her lesson prepared.
Speaker:"Grandma," the girl said, confused.
Speaker:"What big eyes you have.
Speaker:have." All the better for defenseless creatures to be seen.
Speaker:"And what a big nose too,"
Speaker:the girl exclaimed.
Speaker:All the better for defenseless creatures to be scented.
Speaker:He was so proud of how quick she was learning.
Speaker:"Grandma, the girl cried worriedly.
Speaker:"What big teeth you’ve gained!"
Speaker:"All the better for you to be eaten,
Speaker:as was your grandmother, right here!"
Speaker:The wolf leaped, chasing the girl from the fetid house.
Speaker:He was quick despite his full belly, for quick wolves caught meals
Speaker:and the slow caught flies.
Speaker:Only by his charity did she escape.
Speaker:The granddaughter fled home in terror of wolves
Speaker:and the rustling forests that harbored them.
Speaker:Never again would she venture out alone without protection,
Speaker:no longer was there any need.
Speaker:The wolf's work done,
Speaker:he basked in pride even as his stomach complained of its labors.
Speaker:He deigned to depart, but was hampered by exhaustion beyond his control.
Speaker:For the brew which the grandmother consumed hadn't been a mild draught for her,
Speaker:but rather a crippling dose for her willing savior.
Speaker:Our triumphant,
Speaker:foolish wolf had no inkling that the witch had deceived him
Speaker:with a paralyzing brew to match her horrid lie.
Speaker:For the granddaughter
Speaker:was not truly alone as the witch had promised.
Speaker:The girl had a boorish father, the grandmother's own shiftless son,
Speaker:a blot on her family tree she would as soon carve away
Speaker:as call her own. He was a careless oaf who felled trees with his great iron tooth,
Speaker:breath ever stinking with peaty, intoxicating malts,
Speaker:drifting without care from place to place
Speaker:without any concern for his lone daughter's comings and leavings.
Speaker:Word from him was that the red-cloaked girl was charmed in the same fashion her grandmother was cursed,
Speaker:that animals of the most dangerous sort brought her no harm.
Speaker:And so he let the young girl roam,
Speaker:blissful in ignorance.
Speaker:Far worse a sin than that in the witches mind,
Speaker:he had vehemently denied his estranged mother the opportunity to pass her dark arts
Speaker:on to the guileless child,
Speaker:sorely worried that her innocence would be tainted.
Speaker:Guilt for his foolishness
Speaker:would now chase him to his grave.
Speaker:He would curse his own ineptness at keeping his daughter so woefully innocent.
Speaker:But not before he assuaged himself and his terror-stricken daughter
Speaker:with hot-blooded revenge stronger than any brew.
Speaker:The girl returned,
Speaker:bringing her enraged,
Speaker:tearful father, wrung wet in the jaws of guilt.
Speaker:He came upon our sleeping wolf,
Speaker:dreaming soundly of safe girls
Speaker:and a grandmother's
Speaker:curious icy smile,
Speaker:and used the iron tooth to tear the wolf's soft heart for humans open,
Speaker:spilling it about the witch's lair.
Speaker:Had the dead witch a soul, she would have laughed upon both fools,
Speaker:one rent by guilt,
Speaker:the other by iron.
Speaker:The woodsman turned to even stronger drink,
Speaker:sealing himself in a tomb of guilt for the rest of his days.
Speaker:And the granddaughter, painfully ripped from innocence’ embrace,
Speaker:gazed pitilessly upon the potions and scripts
Speaker:of dark arts that she had now inherited.
Speaker:So our sweet wolf perished failing to learn his own lesson,
Speaker:that fear and suspicion is every creature's friend and council.
Speaker:The oldest defenseless wretch of humankind needed neither teeth nor claws to bring him down,
Speaker:only the soft heart’s weight on a charitable soul.
Speaker:And a too-full belly. Don’t forget that part. #
Speaker:The matriarch's cubs sighed as her tale concluded.
Speaker:She had more wisdom to share, but not tonight.
Speaker:They needed to feed.
Speaker:"Tell us another." Her rambunctious one yelped.
Speaker:"Tell us an adventure."
Speaker:"Tell us of love," suggested the scrawny whelp.
Speaker:"Tell us of vengeance,"
Speaker:growled the elder,
Speaker:now sadly the eldest male in the den.
Speaker:"Tales of vengeance,"
Speaker:the wolf matron muttered,
Speaker:wrinkling her nose at the fading intoxicating stink
Speaker:of malt and peat.
Speaker:She nudged the flat iron tooth away from her prey’s gleaming ruin
Speaker:and tore each cub
Speaker:a sweet pink finger from the knuckles of a clutching hand.
Speaker:She smiled as she watched her cubs sup.
Speaker:"Your father knew well,
Speaker:those are my favorites."This was “Story Title” by Author Name, read for you by Khaki,
Speaker:your faithful fireside companion.
Speaker:You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog, or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog
