She had already started cleaning the house, but she was seemingly far from done. Uncle Ho was not at home at the moment, and Noir always liked surprising him with nice things. There was not a lot she could do, but she often tried at least. What the girl now was doing was to go through the closets. She had been born in the cold season, but she could not remember things as well as she wished. This was a whole house, not a den like the one the rest of her family was living in. How cold would this building get when winter came? She did not like thinking about it, because she hated cold and snow. No, Noir wanted to be waaarm always! Hmm, covers and blankets were warm! The girl went from room to room to gather whatever she could find of different covers. Everything was temporarily stored in her room for now, because she realized that the house would probably not be so cold if most of the open windows were closed. Uncle Ho had opened them to air out when he had moved in, but neither of the two wolves living here had thought about shutting them again. Well, now Noir was doing it!
There was a broken window on the first floor, but that was in a spare room that had served as a human toilet, and Noir had no idea what it should be used to, so she simply closed the door and stuffed the key hole and little space under the door with pieces of clothes. There, Noir was super smart! ”Right, Baby Duck?!” the girl called out loudly and was awarded with some quacks from .. somewhere inside the house. The girl smiled as she strode through the living room, but when she was halfway through the room, she stopped. Her eyes fell to the right, where a large fireplace once had enchanted the room and the human inhabitants with its pretty fire and warmth. Noir had never thought about what exactly the fireplace was, but as she walked closer, it was obvious that fire had burned because there was lots of black and even some ash. The thought of having fire inside rubbed the girl the wrong way, but apparently it was possible. A den was small, a house was big. Noir was far from bright, but she understood that the rooms would probably become ice cold. Ho body and Noir body would not be enough to keep the warmth. A fire would.
There was no sticks inside, and Noir had lighted a fire once before and knew that she needed dry wood. Maybe she should gather a super super fantastic amount of wood, so that the fire would burn always and the house would be super warm and good to live in. Wouldn’t Uncle Ho be proud then? The girl liked that thought, and they could roast their meat every day and have lots of ketchup on it. That thought was fantastic. The girl ran out, eager to gather all the wood she could find. In immediate reach there was quite a lot of dry wood, but Noir’s hands were quick and after a few trips in and out of the house to toss the burden into the room with the broken window, she had to start wander further away from the house in order to continue her gathering. Soon she was wandering around close to the river where Dawali had taught her how to set a net for all the fishies to get stuck in. He had even let her borrow it! With merely a few sticks in her hand at time being, the girl took a few steps out into the moving water, trying to see if there was any creatures caught in the net.
The girl tossed the few sticks away and stepped further out to take an even closer look. Movement could be detected under the surface, and the girl squealed in excitement. Could this truly be the first fish ever she had caught? Dawali had set it out for her, but how did she retrieve it? Of course, Dawali had explained how to do that too, but Noir was far from the brightest creature. Her fear for water was nothing like it once had been but she was still slightly nervous. She wanted that fishie though! The water reached her waist now, but the fish was not far away.