The first sound was a soft thump. Then another. Then a series of frantic, scrabbling scratches, followed by the distinct, heart-wrenching crack of a snapping sapling.
Celestine shot upright in bed, her senses on a razor's edge. The pre-dawn gloom was filled with the sounds of what could only be a small-scale demolition of her property. Had the Church found her? Was it a wild boar, returned to finish the job?
She scrambled to the window, her heart pounding, and peered out.
The sight that met her eyes was so absurd it took her a full ten seconds to process it.
The wolf was back. The enormous, storm-grey, supposedly savage beast was in the middle of her garden. But it wasn't hunting. It wasn't prowling. It was… gardening.
Or, more accurately, it was attempting to garden with the brutal efficiency of a siege engine. It held one of her precious, newly-planted lavender seedlings—meant to replace the ones it had destroyed—gently in its massive jaws. It had apparently decided the hole she had dug yesterday was inadequate, and was using its powerful front paws to enthusiastically enlarge it, sending clods of earth and the neighboring chamomile flying in all directions. Another seedling, a valerian, lay snapped in two beside it, a victim of its enthusiastic tail wagging.
A strange, strangled sound escaped Celestine's lips, a hybrid of a gasp, a laugh, and a scream of pure, unadulterated gardener's rage.
She threw on her cloak and stormed outside, the morning dew chilling her bare feet. "You!" she yelled, her voice cutting through the quiet air.
The wolf froze, the lavender seedling drooping from its mouth like a particularly pathetic cigar. Its ears flattened against its head, and its amber eyes went wide, shifting from a look of intense concentration to one of pure, guilty panic. It dropped the seedling.
"What in the name of all that is holy do you think you are doing?" she demanded, striding over to the devastation. She pointed a trembling finger at the snapped valerian. "That was a Valeriana officinalis! Three years to mature from seed! And this!" She scooped up the drooping, slobber-covered lavender. "Do you have any idea the drainage requirements for Lavandula angustifolia? You can't just dig a crater and hope for the best! This is horticulture, not a treasure hunt!"
The wolf let out a low, pathetic whimper. It sank onto its haunches, tucking its tail so far between its legs it almost disappeared. It looked so thoroughly chastised, so comically remorseful, that a large part of Celestine's anger instantly evaporated, replaced by a wave of bewildered fondness. It was like scolding a mountain for tripping.
She put her hands on her hips, studying the cowering giant. "Oh, don't you give me that look. You are a… a… a woodland terror! A creature of fang and fury! You are supposed to howl at the moon and strike fear into the hearts of men, not… not vandalize my perennials!" She shook the slobber-covered seedling at it. "And what is this? An apology? A peace offering you decided to re-bury?"
The wolf whined again, a high-pitched, pleading sound. It lowered its head onto its paws, its eyes looking up at her with such profound, dog-like shame that she had to fight a laugh.
A thought, utterly ridiculous, popped into her head. She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, I see. You think this will work, don't you? You think you can just… make yourself small? Look like a sad little pup?" She gestured at its still-enormous, hulking form. "You are literally the size of a small pony. The performance is not convincing."
But the performance was working, damn it all. With a sigh that carried the weight of every gardener who had ever loved a clumsy creature, she knelt. "Move over, you big oaf. Let me fix your… 'help'."
For the next hour, as the sun properly crested the trees, a vampire and a werewolf tended a garden. Celestine, still muttering about pH levels and root structures, replanted the lavender and the few other casualties of the wolf's "assistance." The wolf, for its part, sat perfectly still, its head cocked, watching her every move with rapt attention, as if trying to memorize the correct technique.
Once the garden was restored to order, Celestine felt a strange sense of camaraderie. The beast had tried, in its own disastrous way, to make amends. It was… oddly endearing.
"I suppose you're hungry," she said, brushing the dirt from her hands. "After all that… strenuous labor." She went inside and returned with the skinned, prepared rabbit from the huntress's gift. She'd cooked the meat for herself, but had saved the raw, cleaned organs and the heart.
She placed the offering on a large burdock leaf and set it before the wolf. "Here. A proper thank you for the… thought."
The wolf sniffed it delicately, then devoured it in two polite bites. It then licked its chops and looked at her expectantly.
"Oh, don't give me that look. You'll get the other one later. Moderation is key," she said, sitting on the stump she used for splitting kindling. The wolf settled down in front of her, a contented rumble in its chest.
The silence was comfortable. For the first time in a very long time, Celestine felt the urge to talk, not to a customer or a villager, but simply to… someone.
"You know," she began, gesturing to the wounded-but-healing patch of earth, "the real trick with lavender isn't the planting. It's the pruning. You have to be ruthless after it flowers. Cut it back by a third, no mercy. It seems cruel, but if you're too gentle, it gets woody and leggy, and it won't produce nearly as much oil the next year."
The wolf's ears twitched. It seemed to be listening.
Emboldened, she continued, her voice taking on a nerdy, enthusiastic tone. "And that wolfsbane over there? Aconitum napellus. Nasty stuff. Beautiful, but deadly. I use it for numbing poultices, but you have to handle it with gloves. It's a paradox, you see? The same properties that can stop a heart can, in the most minute, controlled doses, halt the most agonizing pain. It's all about application. About respect."
She talked about the comfrey, a "knit-bone" marvel, and the tricky nature of mandrake root. She explained why she planted marigolds among her vegetables to deter pests. The wolf listened to it all, its intelligent amber eyes fixed on her, occasionally nodding its great head as if it truly understood the difference between annual and perennial root systems.
It was the most one-sided conversation of her life, and yet, it was the most fulfilling. She wasn't the Last Heir or the Cottage Herbalist. She was just a woman, talking about plants to a wolf who had, for reasons beyond her comprehension, decided to be her friend.
As the morning wore on, a genuine, unforced smile touched her lips. The garden was a mess, her peace was shattered, and she was sharing her breakfast with a creature of legend. It was chaos.
But for the first time in centuries, it was a chaos that felt strangely, wonderfully like home.