Jungkook POV

For a moment I close my eyes and breathe in and out several times so that my fast-beating heart can calm down again. Suddenly I am nudged several times by something soft, which startles me and makes my eyes jerk open.

At that moment I catch sight of a horse's ice-blue eyes and its dark pink, slightly hairy nostrils, its snow-white head without markings and its mop of hair blowing lightly in the wind.

We stare at each other for a while until the pain becomes more bearable and I try to stand up, but it doesn't work so well. Before I can fall back into the mud, the wild horse supports me with its big head.

"Thank you," I whisper wearily, and for the first time, I can see his whole body. He is tall, muscular and above all, despite the surroundings, snow-white, as if he had just sprung from the light of the moon.

"You are beautiful," I breathe in awe of the creature standing before me.

It just whinnies softly and leads me to its withers, which I can hold onto and leads me to my hut, where it bumps its head.

"I should enlarge the entrance," I say and look at the horse apologetically. It snorts in my face in response and pushes me in with its head until I can hold on to the only chair in my hut.

"I'll take that as a yes," I say with a laugh, which I shouldn't have done because it only makes the pain in my ribs worse and I have to stifle a pained groan.

Why should I build more chairs if I'm going to be alone forever? That would only give me extra work.

But instead, I have a window across the room where the same wild horse is already standing and stretching its big head.

This gesture warms my heart, because it wants to stay with me and won't run away from me, so I suggest: "How about we become partners? You as the only wild horse for miles around and me as the lone monster."

In response, it nods so violently that it bumps his head on the window frame, in exactly the same place as before. The wild horse snorts angrily pulls its head out of the window and stares angrily at the frame.

If looks could kill, the frame would already be burnt, so it would no longer exist in this universe.

"It's fine, I'll raise the window frame too," I reply laughing, which is why the words sound choppy from time to time.

Tightening and relaxing my abdominal muscles puts pressure on my broken rib again, which is why I hiss again. Immediately it turns its head towards me and examines me with its dark brown eyes twinkling with concern.

"And what about Rudolf?" I suddenly ask, trying to hide my pain and looking at it expectantly.

The horse looks at me indignantly and stamps its front hoof on the ground.

"Not a stallion?" I ask, surprised and depressed because I just didn't recognise her gender, and that's not hard.

She nods in response, this time careful not to bump her head. I and the mare continue to discuss her name, in a somewhat silly way. Meanwhile, I don't notice someone watching me from a distance.

Jimin Pov

I know it's dangerous.

I know it's a stupid idea.

But aren't those ideas always the best ones in the end?

Too bad I'm in trouble again because of a stupid idea.

How the hell am I supposed to get down from this damn tree without breaking all my bones?

I sigh, cling tighter to the branch and lean forward a little more. At least I can hear his wonderful, soft, deep voice, even if the words escaping his sinful, red lips are not meant for me.

I thought the horses in this area had all disappeared with the death of the last pureblood, never to return, I wonder as I look at the white horse.

A legend has it that when the Moon Goddess lost her lover to a treacherous Silver Arrow, who was the first werewolf and the very first Pureblood, she held him weeping in her arms and swore that such a thing would never happen to any of her children. So she created guardian spirits out of her tears, her grief and a part of her soul and that of her closest friends in the forest. For the purebloods, she specially added not a soul of her friends, but the proud, faithful soul of the horse that protected her beloved until the last moment and is still by his side even after death. These spirits should be a friend to their children and accompany them until death.

The question is whether the horse he is talking to is a moon horse.

I shake my head to get rid of the thoughts. I have to get down here first. I look down at the ground again and have to swallow hard at the sight of it.

This is high.

How did I even get up here?

I continue to think about how to get down when suddenly there is a loud creaking noise next to me as if someone has landed next to me.

Hesitantly I look over and there is a huge brown hawk sitting there watching me with its amber eyes. Why does everything have to be so much bigger here than in the other parts of the forest?

I scream and stagger, and before I can regain my balance I fall backwards off the branch.

Well done, Chim, I praise myself sarcastically.

I close my eyes and brace myself for a painful impact on the cold, hard forest floor. But I felt no pain and landed on soft, warm fur instead of the hard ground. Confused, I open my eyes and realise that I have landed on a large, pitch-black, muscular wolf.

Relieved, I exhale and my body relaxes. I throw the hawk a nasty look and wish he would fall over now too.

"Why do you have to scare me like that?", I say at him angrily. The wolf, whom I know very well, lies down on the ground so that I can slide off his back.

"Thank you." I thank him with cheeks flushed and embarrassment. It's kind of embarrassing to be caught by your crush watching you and drooling over your body.

In the meantime, the horse has also joined us and is eyeing me with cheeky eyes.

It is simply amazing that the wolf is the same size as the horse. The only difference is that the horse seems taller because its head sits higher.

My puny 1.64 m or much more 1.63 m can't keep up with that and not even as a wolf am I taller, no I'm even shorter. As the alpha tries to stand up again, he hisses in pain and sinks back onto the cold, now frozen, dew-covered ground.

Is he hurt?

I anxiously scan him for injuries and indeed found some, right on his back.

"Wait here and you'd best turn around until I get back to you," I order him and walk towards his hut.

"Oh, I may be so bold and go into your hut to find and make the right medicine for you," I call to him over my shoulder.

"Please make sure he doesn't move too much," I ask the mare kindly and she looks at me with suspicious eyes, as if she doesn't trust me.

...Well, I can understand that only too well, because I am the wolf who just tried to fly and didn't make it.

Only now do I notice how rickety the hut looks. It looks neat from the outside, but it's certainly not as well built as the huts in the village. It's almost as if this person has no idea at all how to build a hut...

Surely every Alpha is taught in the Alpha school, right?

There's a lot of nice detail worked into the door that many an Alpha could take a leaf out of, because I always find the bare doors so impersonal and boring.

I would love to run along with my finger the carved wolf, which is surrounded by wild animals, but I have time for that later.

I force myself to take my eyes off the door and look down at the floor, where I see dark splashes of blood, the smell of old blood now also rising to my nostrils and I have to suppress my gag reflex.

Please don't tell me...

I shake off the depressing thought and open the door, which makes a loud creaking noise. But that's not important now, I can ask him about it later. Right now I have to find some herbs and treat him.

As I enter, I smell the wonderful scent of rain and raspberries, which I love anyway.

I quickly gather the herbs. Apparently, he doesn't know anything about herbalism, because apart from pain-relieving herbs, he doesn't have any here.

The next time I come here, I will collect some on the way.

I quickly mix them with a stone mortar in a stone bowl to a green-brown paste in which you can still see the individual plant fibres, but that's not bad.

I grab the stone bowl and a piece of cloth that he probably uses as a bandage and I walk back to him as fast as I can.

I try not to put too much pressure on my foot, because it wouldn't do us any good if I couldn't treat him because of my injury.

The mare notices that I am limping and comes towards me. Shortly afterwards she grabs me by the collar of my jumper and carries me like a little wolf pup to the big wolf who, I notice, still hasn't turned around.

How kind she is, next time I won't bring you carrots or anything else, maybe half an apple, but nothing more.

I'm not a wolf puppy to be carried around by a collar!

Pouting, I let myself be carried to the big alpha wolf because fidgeting is useless anyway.