Todd stopped at the tree in the center of the Great Lawn, panting a bit as he reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out his phone, quickly stopping the timer.
00:07:12
The wolf stared at the timer in disbelief. Surely that couldn’t be right. He looked at the step tracker on his phone.
2.05 miles
Todd didn’t have many classes on Thursday. In fact, his only class was Anthro 101 in the morning. After that, he didn’t have anything to do. Sam, unfortunately, had more classes, and wouldn’t be done until around 3 PM. Initially, Todd had spent his morning doing homework for his classes. But after he finished doing that, he wasn’t sure what to do with his time. Normally he would watch videos online, but he didn’t feel in the mood to do something like that. For some reason, he had this unexplained energy that he just couldn’t shake. With nothing else to do, Todd threw off his shirt, put on a pair of running shorts, grabbed his headphones, and went out for a run around campus.
Todd had never been much of a runner before his transformation. He could barely run a mile without getting winded and needing to walk for a bit. He’d initially expected the same thing to happen, but to his surprise, he never felt winded once. In fact, he felt rather good. He found himself running further and longer than he expected. Before he knew it, he’d apparently run over two miles in under seven minutes.
“Hey, that’s not too bad, lil’ buddy,” a familiar voice said behind him. Todd turned around and found his tail beginning to wag when he saw Dan standing behind him, a grin on his face.
“Oh hey D-Dan!” the black-furred wolf said cheerfully. “What are you doing?”
“Eh, nothing much,” Dan responded. “I was going for a bit of a walk around campus when I just happened to see you run down the path and stop under the tree, so I figured I’d see what you were up to.”
“I just f-figured I’d go for a run around campus, and I’m…”
“Faster than before?”
“Y-Yeah…how did you…?”
Dan laughed and ruffled the fur on Todd’s head. “Happens to almost every new wolf,” he explained. “We wolves are natural marathon runners. We’ve got great speed and stamina, so we’re natural born runners.”
Todd nodded in understanding. He honestly hadn’t considered that his transformation would change his stamina, but in hindsight, it seemed fairly obvious that it would change. “So…all wolves like to run?”
“Well, I can’t speak for all wolves, but I personally love going on morning runs around campus. Nothing like that morning valley air to really get your blood pumping!”
“Huh…do you think that I c-could go on runs with you?”
“Of course you can! Anything for a pack brother!”
Todd cocked his head to the side in confusion. “A…what?”
“A pack brother,” Dan repeated. “Since you’re in the Claw Valley pack, you’re part of our family. So technically, you’re kind of like a younger brother to me.”
“Huh…” Todd mulled over what Dan said. “That’s p-pretty cool.” It actually sounded rather appealing to the young wolf. He had always been an only child, so the idea of having siblings, even if they weren’t related to him by blood, excited him.
The brown-furred wolf nodded enthusiastically. “It is, isn’t it?” he asked. “Believe me when I say that I love teaching new wolves about how life works here.”
“Then…could you t-teach me?”
Dan grinned and wrapped an arm around Todd in a friendly manner. “There’s still a whole lot you need to learn about wolf culture and how things work for us, and I’m more than happy to show you the ropes! Now come on!” Before Todd knew what was going on, he was being led somewhere by the older wolf. While part of him was eager to learn what exactly Dan meant by “wolf culture”, another part of him wondered what exactly he had gotten himself into.