She does not hear him, focused as she is on the mournful echoes of her own howl. He is just another dark shadow at the corner of her vision, a shape that will blur and fade away the moment she turns, and so rather than subject herself to the ache in her heart that will come with it, she howls one final time. It is longer than the last, a single breath that starts as deep as the dark den where Bramble lies and rising until the she wolf can barely hear her own voice. Foxtail has always been a singer; it is the one thing that she is proud of, the one thing that she could do better than Bramble. Oh, her sister had a lovely voice, as soft and sweet as her nature, but awkward, gawky, not-so-pretty Foxtail had this one thing to hold on to, even when the rest of her life seems to have ripped out from beneath her black paws.

Still expecting the dark shape to vanish were she to turn, the red-tailed wolf is startled by the scent of another wolf so near, and she spins quickly to face him as the last remnants of her howl fade away to silence. “Tyba…” she starts to say, but the male wolf is not her pack mate, not the one soul she had imagined might sit quietly and listen to her mourn her younger sister. She does not apologize, but rather watches him in silence for a moment, clearly wary. The harvest gold light of her large eyes remain focused on him, and for a long while the only sound is the soft rustle of the grass as it sways in the dark night.

Foxtail stands, still without speaking, and takes a few steps closer to the red wolf. Her tail is out, parallel with her body but no higher, and she is not comfortable enough with socializing to say anything more than: “Who’re you?” The young wolf is not by nature a gentle soul – though she is far from cruel – and she is unsure how to react to this unknown wolf so close, having heard something she was not sure she really wanted to hear. She wishes, for a very brief moment, that he were Tybalt, and she could pounce and wrestle and pin him to the ground and they could forget, for that handful of seconds, that they are completely alone.