SHE PULLED ME up with ease. I searched her eyes for any knowledge that I was banished and the reason behind it.

I did not find any. Just the warm brown familiar eyes of and her wide smile. She was really happy to see me.

“How have you been?” She asked, pulling me into a tight hug.

My arms wrapped around her waist and I inhaled the nice fragrance from her hair. We stayed in the hug for some seconds before she pulled back and I noticed a squat figure just behind her.

“Oh, this is Grem.” She said. “He’s a dwarf.”

I looked closely at this strange creature, barely reaching up to my knees with large feet and hands and big black eyes too.

“We have them at the pack now. Not as slaves, though. Of course not.” She said, laughing. “More like an exchange of relationship, we offer them food and shelter and protection and they run the chores of the pack. Like cooking and cleaning.”

I made the appropriate noise to that because she nodded and continued. “Dad wanted to offer them money too, you know.