Why did I bite his ear?

I was born—no, that’s too early. My name’s Alice. For suspense, I’ll omit the title bestowed upon me by the king, and I didn’t have one at the beginning. The story proper began when I left the village in search of adventure, on the day after my seventeenth birthday, so the villagers who looked after me could no longer order me to stay put.

I wanted to prove them wrong by making a name for myself. All I had with me then was a backpack and a strong feeling that life in the village wasn’t for me. Don’t get me wrong—life in the village was nice, I admit, but it couldn’t be _it_. Who knows where I got the idea—probably the books that told of heroes and their deeds.

So, I was in the forest, walking to the nearest town to join a guild, when a wolf attacked me.

“Ah, ack!” I tumbled to the left, and the wolf missed me by a hair. My hair was pretty long, but thankfully the wolf didn’t catch it with its scary fangs.

A proper hero would just slice the wolf in half with a sword, but I didn’t have a sword! I thought that adventures would start after I joined the guild, not on the way to it.

I didn’t have a weapon, only a small knife, more suitable for chopping apples, and even that was somewhere in the bag—unless I had forgotten to pack it. Apples, by the way, would play some role in the story later, so I should probably tell you about them. In my village there were a lot of big apple trees. Ah, what a tasty fruit! Maybe that’s why the village didn’t have a doctor. In fact, one time—sorry, yes, the wolf.

The wolf hit the ground and turned, readying itself for another jump. Ah, what to do, what to do—and why is there a wolf in the first place, so close to the village? Never heard of any wolves nearby; the chief didn’t warn me either.

I froze for a moment, thinking, “Is this how I’m going to die?” but then thought,“No, I couldn’t and I wouldn’t.”

I had to do something. The next part is improbable, but that is indeed what happened.

The wolf jumped, and I jumped too; I grabbed its head and pulled it toward myself, then bit its ear on instinct. I didn’t know why. It was a stupid idea.

Suddenly, the wolf went limp. We landed on the ground. The wolf didn’t bite me—in fact, the beast started wagging its tail.

Contract established.

What? I blinked a few times, then jumped to my feet to look around. I wanted to see the source of that voice, but there was no one there. The forest was back to its serene quietness. Well, not total quietness: a bird chirped here and there.

My heart was still thumping loudly; I breathed to calm down, as I had been taught to do. Breathe in, pause a little, breathe out, pause a little.

I looked at the wolf, which was still wagging its tail; its eyes were focused on me.

“So… what’s next?” I said, mostly to myself.

“I would like a name, master,” said the wolf.

“Ehhh?!” I didn’t know wolves could speak. That fact was not mentioned in the books.

“So my name will be ‘Ehhh?!’, master?” he said.

“N-no, that’s not a name. Why do you call me master?”

The wolf put a paw on his head. He was disappointed in me? I knew the gesture because the villagers did this a lot around me.

“You bit my ear; that’s what makes a contract.” Ah, so he was pointing to his ear. I sighed in relief that I hadn’t caused a facepalm—no, a headpaw—in the first minute of talking to the beast.

“And what’s this contract?”

“I will serve at your feet for the rest of my life, master.”

“Isn’t that a trick to make me lower my guard so you can bite my head off?”

The wolf shook his head. “Well, I intended to do so, but now the contract is sealed; I cannot go against it. I would sooner die myself.”

“So you’re a slave?” The thought of having a talking wolf slave was too much. I tossed the backpack on the ground and sat on it. I propped my head on my hands as if it would help me think better. It didn’t.

“What’s a slave?”

I had read about them: slaves were people chained to their masters. Sometimes the hero would free them from their invariably evil masters, sometimes not. I didn’t want to be evil, so I couldn’t possibly have a slave, even a wolf-shaped one, so that made this contract not a slave contract.

Looking back, now I recognize that this was some backward logic, but hey, I freed some slaves later in—no, I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Ah, don’t mind that; it’s probably not that… Anyway, you want a name, right? What are some cool wolf names? Something like White Fang, or maybe The Gruesome Killer?”

The wolf looked to the left, to the right, then stood up to take a few steps toward me.

“The noblest name I have ever heard from the elders was Chicken Hunter!” His voice was hushed; did he look around to see whether anyone was listening?

“Chicken Hunter, huh… makes sense. Do you want that name?”

He took a few steps back. “No, no, I couldn’t possibly! I have never even seen a chicken, let alone hunted that ferocious monster!”

“Ferocious monster?” The image of the chickens that lived back home in the village flashed before my eyes. Perhaps I didn’t know their secrets, but they seemed harmless to me. “What did you hunt then? Rabbit Destroyer, maybe? Squirrel Threat?”

“I will accept any name you bestow upon me, master.”

“Call me Alice, if you don’t mind.” I scratched my head, trying to think of a name. “Can you turn around? I want to see you from all sides before I pick a name.”

He did. My idea of spotting some peculiar fur patch failed spectacularly; he looked just like a picture of a gray wolf from the books, no blemishes to speak of.

The books! I waited until he turned to face me once more. “I’ve decided.” I raised my hand to give the moment more appropriate weight and deepened my voice. “Your name shall be Harl, after the wolf that eats the world in the northern tales!”

And as I said that, Harl’s fur began to glow with golden light; his body began to grow; soon he towered above me, taller than a tall man. I looked meekly at him from below.

“What?” That was all I could ask at that moment.

“Master.” He lay before me and lowered his head. “I gladly accept that name and will cherish it until my last breath, the last breath of Harl.”

I chuckled nervously. “And why did you grow?”

“You gave me a name.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Should I give you a second name, so you can grow even bigger?”

And now Harl definitely tried to facepalm, but he stopped his paw halfway. “No, my master. The name binds me to your power; I merely reflect its magnitude.”

Was I that strong? I couldn’t believe it—not “gigantic-wolf strong,” that’s for certain. And what should I do with him? Well, he could probably help out a lot with adventures, but walking into a town with him would cause panic for sure. We’d have to split before I could pass through the town gates.

“Let me get this straight. You would follow my orders and be willing to travel with me?”

“Of course, my master. Wherever you go, I go.”

“And if I asked you to stay and wait for me outside the town?”

“What is ‘the town’? Regardless, your wish is my command, but I would prefer to stay at your side to guard you. And one more thing.” He paused. “You are responsible for me as well.”

“Responsible how?” I was suspicious.

“I’m in your care.”

I gulped at the thought of having to feed such a large beast—he could probably eat a whole cow for breakfast. But then I had another idea of how to care for him.

I stood up and gave Harl a little scratch behind the ear I had bitten. That ear was bigger than my head now, but it was fluffy. “You asked about the town… The town is where people live, and more importantly, that’s where all great adventures begin! So that’s where I—no, we—will go.”

If Harl was displeased by my scratching, he didn’t show it. His tail was sweeping the dust from the road.

“You’re going on an adventure, master?”

“Yes! But first, I need to get to the guild; heroes often get quests there!”

I looked down the road in the direction that was still untraveled and picked up my backpack. I’d have to walk two more days to reach that town; the thought made my shoulders drop a little. The books usually cut out the travel part, and now I understood why. Tedious.

Then I looked back at Harl. “Eh, can I ride you?”

He nodded and moved one paw to improvise a ladder with one step; I climbed on and sat on his back. “Well, we’ll go that way—you can’t see the direction I’m showing, sorry. We will go forward. But let’s not frighten any passersby, so if you notice anyone, just jump into the forest, all right, Harl?”

And we took off—ah, what speed! The wind threw my hair around. I grabbed Harl’s fur with all my might to avoid falling off. Part of me wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t—I had a world to see!

We reached the town walls in less than an hour—so I did cut out the walking time from my story after all. What I didn’t know then was that going into that town alone was a mistake.