Chapter Text
"Come on, Aether. Do you really think this 'Wolf Boy' is real? You have to admit it sounds pretty crazy!" Lumine told her twin brother. It was on days like this she couldn't understand how they shared a womb.
"Maybe, maybe not. But even if the boy isn't real, the wolves are! Don't you want to check them out? According to the rumors they're killer wolves!" he said, climbing the tall fence with ease.
"Paimon isn't sure this is a good idea. Even though it's not that far away from the city, the environment here is totally untouched. It's a wild place ruled by the laws of nature," their little sister said before Lumine could admit she did want to see the legendary wolves of Wolvendom.
"That makes it even more fun! Now come on already. I'll pull you up, Paimon!" Aether said as he swung his leg over the fence before reaching out his hands to the small girl. Lumine lifted her up, and with practiced ease they carried her over the fence.
Now that they were inside, Lumine finally took the opportunity to actually look at their surroundings. She had to admit, Wolvendom was gorgeous. Aether and her had seen a lot of places given that their family moved all the time, but they had never encountered a place that was as… untamed as this. The trees were towering and old, and their bark bore claw marks. The fence was the only sign of human intervention.
Paimon quickly grew tired as they walked, complaining of sore feet, so Lumine lifted her on her shoulders. Just ahead of them, Aether grabbed some sweet-smelling plants and stuffed them in his backpack.
"They say it's survival of the fittest out here. Even the slimes around here are huuuge!" Paimon whispered in Lumine's ear, just before screaming in terror. Speak of the devil, three such slimes just appeared right in front of them, popping out of the ground with a squishy noise.
"Lumine, get back!" Aether shouted, jumping between them and the slimes while he took out his dagger.
It was stupid, Aether stood no chance against such huge beasts with his tiny knife, but before Lumine could even begin to shout that, a grey blur ran past her.
"Stay back!" a raspy voice shouted. The slimes made horrible squelching noises as they were attacked by… a person? Aether was as frozen as she was, staring at their sudden protector. Even Paimon was shocked into silence.
It was over in seconds. Realizing they stood no chance, the slimes hopped away as quickly as possible. The grey figure roared in triumph, lifting his…
Was that a sword? A sword almost as big as her? Is it normal for Springvalers to have actual massive swords?
Finally, satisfied the slimes weren't coming back, the person turned back to them, and Lumine could see more than just his long messy hair. The large scar on such a boyish face made it hard to guess how old he was, but she guessed he was around her age. He wore green camo pants and a beige shirt under a brown hoodie, making him blend in with the forest. A scarred hand pushed his hood back over his head. His hoodie was strange, it seemed to have a hole in the neck that his hair went through.
""Th-Thank you!" Paimon said, panting. She opened her mouth to say more when howles rang out. "Aah! Wolves! Run!" she immediately shouted, her tiny feet kicking against Lumine's chest.
"Do not worry. Wolves friends. But who you are? How you get in fence?!" he asked, looking straight at Lumine with piercing red eyes.
"Oh, we're just… you know, travelers, passing through!" Paimon said. Before Lumine could clarify, the boy stepped up to her.
"Don't smell boring. You smell… familiar," the strange boy said, sniffing loudly. What on Teyvat was up with this kid? He was the last person who should be commenting on smell! Now that he was close his scent was overwhelming, a pungent aura of sweat, wet dog, and… blood? Aether moved closer as well, grip tightening on his dagger, though he didn't jump between. "Thanks, bro. Such a hero, defending me from this weird kid sniffing me," she thought sarcastically.
"We smell?" Paimon asked angrily, shaking on Lumine's shoulders. She carefully set her down.
"No, smell like… Favonius. Like Lisa. They are friends." the boy said, very matter-of-fact like this was extremely obvious and normal.
"Favonius? You mean our school?" Aether asked, lowering his dagger a bit. The wild boy briefly glanced at the weapon before stabbing his giant sword into the ground next to them in a dismissive gesture, like he was saying "You have no hope of beating me so don't even bother to try."
"Yes. School. You smell like people from Favonius," he said.
"I'm Lumine, and these are Aether and Paimon. What's your name?" she asked, hoping to diffuse the tension a bit.
"Razor," he simply answered, staring at her again with those piercing eyes.
"Do you go to Favonius school too?" Aether asked, sheathing his dagger.
"No." Truly a man of few words. Another wolf howl echoed through the clearing, quickly followed by others.
"What's with the wolf pack?" she hesitantly asked, suspecting this was the legendary 'Wolf Boy'.
"My wolf pack. They are family. I raised with wolves. Different wolves, but this pack is now family. They are angry with me. I help you, expose our ambush, boar run away," Razor explained. Paimon looked sad at his words, before suddenly lighting up.
"How about we help you catch a boar?" the little girl suggested. Aether smiled and nodded at that idea, making Lumine raise an eyebrow at her brother. Sure, they had hunted rabbits before, but that was different from boar!
"N-No need! When Favonius try to help, wolves go hungry! Like red burny girl! When she come here, whole mountain on fire! Can't even catch one boar!" Razor quickly said. Before Lumine could question who the 'burny girl' was, the wolves howled again.
"I must go now. Here not safe. Go back, over fence. Careful. Always watching!" Razor said, before grabbing his sword and running off again.
It took a few moments before they had recovered enough to heed his words. Aether carried Paimon as they walked back to the fence.
"That must have been the 'Wolf Boy'! We did it! Though it sucks we didn't get to see the wolf pack!" Aether said as they climbed back over the fence, and from his tone Lumine already knew this wouldn't be the last time they'd sneak into Wolvendom.
"What's the time?" Razor asked as he shoved the last of the potatoes into his mouth. Today's dinner had been the usual baked potatoes, meat, and some canned vegetables. He hated the veggies, in the wild he hadn't been able to survive on such food that gave him so little energy, but Andrius insisted he had to eat at least some. Apparently if he only ate meat he'd become sick, but that didn't make sense to Razor. Wolves only eat meat, and they're fine.
"Almost seven," Andrius said after a glance at the clock. Razor followed his gaze, trying once again to figure out the device. Lisa had explained how it worked, but he had trouble remembering. The fact that he didn't know the symbols for the different numbers didn't help either.
Time itself didn't make much sense to Razor. The idea that the day is split into these set pieces, that one had to wake up or eat or go out at set times was incomprehensible. In his experience, you eat whenever you find food because who knows when you find it again. You wake up with the sunrise, as it brings out the prey. You stay in a cave when it rains. All things that happened at random "hours".
Not that Andrius' household had much of a set schedule. When Razor first arrived in Wolvendom he had attempted to enforce some strict rules, but that didn't last long when Razor had simply not understood what a 'rule' even was. Nowadays Andrius mostly let him come and go as he liked, though he did have to be home on time for dinner and lessons with Lisa.
Dinnertime also came with another thing he looked forward to every day. The reason he had asked for the time in the first place.
"Liyue Lane soon?" he asked, licking up the grease from his plate.
"Yes, it starts at 7 PM every day. When the clock is like that," the older man explained, having given up on correcting Razor's lack of table manners years ago.
The boy jumped up and ran to the couch, grabbing the 'remote' and clicking on the big button at the top to turn on the television to catch his favorite program.
When Razor had first come here, he had thought the television was magic. A flat box making light and pictures like there were people and places inside? The wilderness didn't have anything like that!
He still couldn't quite understand how it worked, but he had accepted it as a window into a world beyond Wolvendom. Much of it just made him anxious, though. He couldn't understand much of what the people in the box talked about. They spoke the same language he was learning, but they seemed to all… understand so much. It was like almost every sentence was a code containing hidden meanings he had no idea how to decipher. Expressions, references, events, celebrities, he understood none of what made it supposedly funny or interesting.
Seeing how confused the 'teenage' channel made him, Andrius had shown him this channel. Programs here made no sense either, but in a different way. Much of it were moving drawings, or other weird images that weren't quite real, which made him nervous. But it was the content that confused him the most.
The "animal-chons" as Andrius had called them, had things that Razor did know: animals, forests, nature, storms. But they behaved nothing like how he knew them. The animals talked and walked on two feet, the forests were more like neat gardens, the wolves had eyes that were way too big. In one program that gave him actual nightmares the sun had a human baby inside it. He had complained to Andrius and Lisa that it wasn't right, that dogs didn't talk, that cats couldn't walk like that, that trees looked different.
They had tried to explain that it was supposed to be different, that it was 'fantasy' and 'stories', but it just gave Razor headaches.
The one program that didn't have disturbing 'animalchons' or indecipherable dialogue was Liyue Lane. Instead, it showed life in a street filled with all kinds of people. Some of them would play pranks on each other, or talked about their problems in ways he understood them. Others would explain things like counting or the seasons. And the start and end of each episode had his favorite person: Barbara, a girl his age who would sing and dance in a way that made his heart race. Her voice made him want to join in even though he didn't really know how.
"Da, da-da-da dah, da-da-da da, da, da!" Razor sang with Barbara as the episode ended, when he caught Andrius looking at him with a strange expression.
"What?" he asked, feeling like he did something wrong.
"Nothing! I was just wondering if you would like singing lessons. Me and Lisa can't really sing, but you could get a teacher in the city," the man said with a small smile.
"Singing… lessons?" Razor asked, unsure what that even meant. Was he bad at singing? Was singing just like reading or talking? Something he couldn't do without endless study?
"Yes, it's where you learn different notes, and how to breathe and move your lips so you can sing just like Barbara. And you could sing together with other students. I think it would be good for you to have a hobby. Something you like, that you can do with others," Andrius said, gesturing at the tv where Barbara was finishing up her song. His words just made Razor frown.
"But I like running. And hunting. I do that with the wolves. They're others, right?" he said, very confused about why Andrius' face fell at his words.
"I know you do, but it might be good for you to do things with… well, humans," the older man said with a chuckle. Razor didn't understand.
"But I eat with you. I read and count with Lisa. I fight sword with Varka. Humans," he said, fidgeting with his hair.
"I mean humans your own age. Fellow teenagers. Look, just think about whether you want to learn more about singing. Or about some other hobby. Maybe you can join a sports team. You don't have to decide now. Tonight we can just watch another nature documentary. Would you like that? We can see more lions!" Andrius changed the topic handily, and the prospect of seeing animals on the television cheered Razor up again.
Though he did note the birds on tv never had to go to singing class. So why should he?
"Tensions are high in Springvale after a wolf allegedly attacked a villager last night. Residents claim the attacker came from nearby Wolvendom Animal Sanctuary, but police have not confirmed this so far. Police Chief Varka has called for calmth awaiting a full report. We spoke with the victim-" Lisa turned off the radio, not able to stand another word of the stupid reporting. If it was really a wolf, the victim would be dead, not just left with a fright. She suspected a stray cat.
Though Lisa might be a little biased, given her ties to Wolvendom. In fact, that was where she was driving now, passing through Springvale. The village was restless, and she spotted people gathering at the edge of town near the road to Wolvendom. Most of them were carrying signs.
One man had a shotgun strapped to his back.
Driving past them, Lisa avoided eye contact. What a ruckus over such a little incident. She didn't really understand why people put in so much effort protesting when they could be napping instead.
A few minutes later she was parked outside the wooden gate to the sanctuary. A minute after ringing the bell it opened.
"Lisa, good to see you. I'm sorry if I'm a little distracted today, things are a mess with that attack last night," Andrius said as he locked the door behind her. "No one followed you?"
"No, but there was a crowd gathering with signs. I think they're going to protest here," she said, hanging up her coat. Footsteps echoed through the house as Razor ran in through the back door.
"Lisa," he simply said, though she could tell he was happy to see her.
"I'll leave him in your care while I try to calm those people down," Andrius said, walking into his office.
"Hey cutie, how are you doing today?" Lisa asked Razor as she sat down. As usual, the boy paced around the room, burning his energy. Razor seldom sat still, and he always needed some time to calm down for study sessions.
"Andrius busy. Angry. Won't explain. I'm… confused. Don't understand. The t-t-t… light box-"
"Television," Lisa interjected.
"Television say Lupical attack village. It's wrong. Lie. Fence is high. Wolves don't climb over. Not from here. Not Lupical," he said, pacing more rapidly. Lisa sighed. How to explain this?
"Look, honey, I know the wolves here didn't do anything. But sometimes… people get scared when something happens and they don't understand it. Something happened last night, they don't know what, so they… lash out," she slowly explained. Razor was silent for a while as he absorbed it.
"Like when Greytooth bit Razor? Rock fell on paw, but she did not see rock. It hurt, she was… confused? And so she thought I did it, so she attacked?" he eventually offered, rubbing the scar on his arm he got that day.
"A bit like that, I suppose. But let's focus on your lessons! Time to learn more letters!" Lisa said as she grabbed some sheets of paper. Razor groaned a bit, though he didn't complain.
"The… d-o-g… dog? Uhhh, this letter is..." Razor read the sentence slowly, running his finger along the letters as he spelled them out and put them together into words. Despite several months of study, Razor was still illiterate. He had a lot of trouble remembering all the letters, and he was hopeless at any word longer than four letters or so. At least he could speak fairly well now, even if he didn't like it much.
They read for a while, Razor slowly learning the vowels. Though they had to start over with those every week. Maybe one day he'd remember the difference between 'e' and 'a'.
When she sensed that he couldn't take another letter, Lisa took away the sheets of paper and grabbed the marbles she used to teach him math.
"Math" was a big word for it, really. It was more "Arithmetic". Or even "Basic counting". Beyond some counting on his fingers, Razor was baffled by numbers. He just couldn't wrap his head around the idea that '5 + 3' meant something abstract beyond combining a set of 5 marbles with 3 marbles.
Lisa figured it was because of him never talking, let alone doing math, during his formative years. Humans don't know things like "language" or "metaphors" or "addition" automatically. It all has to be taught, and that becomes a lot harder when one is 14 than when one is 4 years old. A toddler's brain absorbs all information it is taught like a sponge, and that forms the brain structure for the rest of his life.
Trying to teach someone going through the early stages of puberty, on the other hand, is like holding water in a sieve.
"Marbles! We are counting again? One, two, three red. One, two, three, four, five... seven yellow?" he tried, unsure what came after he used all the fingers on his right hand. But before she could even correct him, he grabbed the marbles and grouped them together.
"One red, one two yellow. One red, one two yellow. And again one red, one two yellow! Match." he pointed out happily, splitting the marbles into groups of three, and Lisa smiled with him. He could notice patterns at least, and he was always upbeat during his lessons. When Lisa first met Razor, she had expected him to be moody, broken, traumatized. She had expected tantrums and violence from the wild child.
But instead he was just… happy to learn. To see her. At least with his lack of human knowledge, he also didn't know that teenagers were supposed to hate school. Though she supposed their sessions were more like kindergarten than high school.
And like kindergarten, she handed Razor some crayons and paper after the 'math' lesson was over, and watched as he drew whatever was in his mind. Holding a pencil is another of those skills that needs to be taught and practiced, so before he could begin to write, he had to learn to draw.
Plus it was a good way for him to express his thoughts when he didn't know the words.
Most days he drew trees and rivers, and the wolf pack running through them. Sometimes he drew her, Varka, or Andrius. One time he drew "red burny girl", running from a forest fire. Lisa had explained that the girl was called Klee, and went to the nearby Favonius school, but she didn't think Razor had understood it.
Today, his mind was somewhere else. He drew a fence, with wolves in front and what looked like wooden blocks on the other side. His expression turned angry.
"What are you drawing, cutie?" she asked, rubbing his messy hair as she looked over his shoulder.
"Fence of Wolvendom. Wolves can't go to village. Fence too big. Lupical not attack. If villagers come here I show this. Easier to explain with drawing than words," he said, gesturing at the brown squares she now recognized as houses.
"Oh, honey. That's very sweet of you, but I don't think they will care about your drawing," she said as gently as she could, though his face still fell.
"Why?" he asked. Oh, this poor boy. No matter how much she taught him, Lisa didn't think he could learn social skills from her. He needed to play and talk with people his own age to really learn that. And there weren't many of those in Springvale. Let alone ones willing to talk to the 'Wolf Boy'.
"Because… it's not something you should get involved in. If they come here, me and Andrius will do the talking, okay?" she said, not sure how to explain politics or protests to Razor. He was in such a strange stage of development. He certainly wasn't dumb or lazy. On certain things, like understanding survival or death or animal behavior, he was far ahead of his peers. But on so many other things, his understanding was like a toddler's.
It was clear to Lisa now that Razor needed more than just learning to read and count. Wolvendom may have been a safe and secure place for him to grow out of the "feral child" he used to be, but now it might be more like a prison, separating him from the rest of society. A society he would have to join at some point. The fence of Wolvendom kept the wolves away from the villagers, but it was only now that she realized it also kept the Wolf Boy away from other humans.
She would have to talk to Andrius about it, and soon.