Foundation of Friendship

Hide-and-Seek was a good game. It didn't contain quite as much running as Tag, but Theo was very well practiced at finding people with his wolf-like senses of smell and hearing. If Arjean so much as sneezed he would hunt her down. So he was satisfied with the choice. Arjean asked to be the hider, to Theo's delight. He was much better at finding than staying quiet, so he agreed. "Of course!" He said. "I will close my eyes and count to ten, you run away and I will come and find you."

With that, Theo turned his back to Arjean, allowing her to run off to wherever she wanted to hide, and started counting. He hadn't set any boundaries for the game, so Arjean could be hiding anywhere, and he had no idea of her powers, so finding her would be more difficult than he thought it would be. He covered his eyes with his hands and looked down as he counted loudly, so his friend would hear him from wherever they were.

"One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine...ten!" He had learnt to count by playing the game so much. When he played it in his old wolf pack, they sometimes counted to fifty to let everyone hide deep into the woods. Here their parents were expecting them to stay in the school grounds, so ten seconds seemed enough.

Opening his eyes, turning around and smiling widely, Theo yelled, "Ready or not, here I come!"

Unaware that he had misheard Arjean, Theo set out to find them. As he turned around, he was secretly relieved they were gone. He had half expected them to still be there, questioning him about the rules. He was also happy they couldn't be seen from where he stood. Many of the kids he taught games to were horrible at them at first. So, feeling challenged, Theo scanned the area for footprints, sounds or smells.

For or some reason, there were no footprints on the ground in sight. Nobody was that good, he thought, finding it hard to believe Arjean was still learning. They must be incredibly light-footed, he thought, as there was a layer of snow coating most of the ground. Next he sniffed the air. There were so many scents from all the children running about playing games, and he recognised none of them. He hadn't known anybody, Arjean included, enough to be able to isolate their smell.

It seemed the only thing left to do was try and hear noise. Mentally blocking out the sounds of the other children playing in the distance, he listened for closer noises. The only sound he heard was - breathing! In the tree! Scaling the trunk with ease, Theo dug at a lump in the snow, eager to find Arjean and win. He uncovered a creature about the same size as himself. It was an owl. How long had that been there? It wasn't around when he had climbed the tree the first time, and he hadn't noticed it while he was talking. Maybe it landed there while he was counting? The sound of his own voice drowned out quiet noises, so maybe it was then, he thought.

"Sorry," he apologised to the owl, not expecting it to answer. It looked different to other owls, but Theo hadn't really seen many owls before. He thought about asking it if it had seen somebody running away, but thought it silly to talk to an owl. So he jumped off of the tree and ran off to try and find his friend.

Theo continued to search for Arjean. As the space in front of him was open, he ran with his super speed over to a cluster of trees. He climbed all over them, with no sign of his friend. He zoomed to a few more places, quickly but methodically searching them in record time, and eventually returned to just in front of where he came from. They were good at the game. Was it possible they had ventured out of the school grounds? Or inside a building? He had thought Arjean was quite shy. Would she do something like that?

Just then, when he stopped moving for a second, he heard something. His pointy ears perking up to listen, he heard the distinct sound of sobbing. Thinking that an older kid got hurt while playing the big game, Theo was about to return to his search when he realised what direction it was coming from. Behind him. He hadn't thought there was anyone over that way, so he spun around, mostly out of curiosity but partially so he could cheer up whoever was sad. Then he saw who was on the ground.

They resembled the owl he saw, in a way, yet they had four legs. A shapeshifting owl? But then he drew a connection. This was why the owl looked different! Arjean could shapeshift! After his exciting detective moment, he returned to reality. His friend was crying, so he had to go help them. Running over there, he knelt by their side. "Arjean? Is that you?" He asked. He still wasn't certain it was really them, it could be their sibling, or a relative, or somebody similar.

He he was curious as to why they were sad, but wanted to be nice, so he asked, "Are you okay?" He looked at them. They were so upset, and he was t even there to see why. Were they hurt? Did something happen? Theo's mind was overflowing with questions he couldn't answer and thoughts he couldn't explain. Feeling his head hurt, he stopped thinking and instead concentrated on making sure his friend was okay.

Arjean was so sad, but Theo didn't know how to help them. There was nothing he thought to do to make them happy again. But he decided to do his best at being comforting, even if it was something he had never done before.

When they admitted they couldn't shift back to their original form, Theo's eyes squinted and he frowned a little, confused. From what he gathered, they had at least three forms, which was one more than Theo had. Sort of. And usually they would be able to switch, but this time, for some reason, they couldn't.

Not being able to turn was an issue Theo faced everyday. He had never even shifted before, and was stuck in some kind of wolf-boy combination. Every full moon, he would ask his parents to let him join the rest of the wolf pack in their forest to turn for the night. Of course, being unable to turn, they never let him. Instead, they sat around at home, his parents chaining themselves and Theo to the wall, in the hope that he would turn for the first time.

So it was no surprise that Theo couldn't answer Arjean's question. "It's okay," he said softly, "I've never turned before." He looked down at his legs sadly. "I'm supposed to be just a boy- or just a wolf- not both! I've never been either of them, I've always been stuck like... This." By this, he was referring to his hybrid state, which he had to live with and endure the discomfort, embarrassment and questions that came with it.

"How do you usually shift?" He asked, not only to find a solution to Arjean's problem, but to his own as well.

"We can work this out," Theo said to Arjean, mostly to get them to stop crying. He wasn't actually very confident that they would get them to change back, but he didn't see what the big deal was. Having never turned into either of his natural forms, Theo couldn't exactly sympathise with his friend, but really wanted to cheer them up. He could however, tell them, "It okay. There nothing wrong with the form you are in." There really wasn't. It actually looked very similar to their other forms. Theo wondered how he mistook her for an owl in the tree, reasoning that it was due to all the snow.

"Don't worry Arjean," Theo said, trying to be comforting, "It okay." He repeated himself a little, but that was only because he didn't really know what to say. What could he do? Even he knew that a new friend wasn't really going to help with tears. Tears were bad things. Why did tears even exist? To let people know you're sad? It didn't sound very reasonable to Theo, but he went with that.

As Arjean told him what usually helped with shifting forms, he knew just what to do. He had to calm them down! He searched his brain for something to do that... Oh yes! The old, wise wolf in his old pack! He had never been angry, even when the little cubs annoyed him. Not even when other wolves called him crazy. So Theo decided to show Arjean how to calm down. "Okay. I am your friend, and you also have to be calm," he explained. "So you have to do what I say."

He raised a fist and extended his index finger. "Follow my finger with your eyes. But not your head," he said, beginning to move his arm in slow swinging motions. "Breathe really deeply too. So your chest goes out and in. And cross your legs. It supposed to help." Of course it would work. The old werewolf was so clever, he could never be wrong!