“No, thanks though,” Nootau responded quickly to the white wolf, looking away from both her and the rabbit. He couldn’t just show up and expect to be fed. Besides, everyone needed food. Disregarding his rationale though, what was with this, “oh young pup should” stuff? He’d been doing fine on his own. Geez. Crazy adults. Honestly though, teenage angst aside, Nootau felt very special in that moment. A stranger, worrying about him? Like a mother might. Since Nootau hadn’t known his parents, the mixture of gratitude and wounded teen-pride was a complicated one. On the outside, it made him cringe, but it on the inside, it warmed his heart.

Nootau’s orange and blue eyes widened in surprise when the black wolf promptly picked up her half of the rabbit and set it by his paws. He watched her with shining, thankful eyes. These two wolves were so generous! The females accepted him into their conversation without any glare and furthermore, both offered food to him! Nootau’s tail wagged. What two kind she-wolves, these Jaggar and Adina, were! He hadn’t approached them for the food, but he’d take it, since it was being like… forced on him. “Thank you!” he exclaimed and lowered himself to bite into the flesh of the rabbit. Oh yummy! Nootau’s eyes glowed with impossible appreciation. He had never had so easy a meal in his life, and never one that tasted so good! Maybe because it was a gift that made the prey so much more juicy and sweet.

Nootau swallowed a piece of rabbit he had torn off with a snap of his jaws. He licked the sides of his muzzle as he answered the pair,“I guess - I don’t really know when I arrived. I was jus’ following my nose and ended up here.” He looked to Adina, in order to give her the floor to respond to Jaggar’s inquiry. The question made him wonder where the two females were from. Adina, with her white coat, was possibly from the arctic? Nootau had always wanted to visit the ever frozen tundra in the far north, but he wasn’t sure when he would be able to make the journey. And then Jaggar was the opposite in color. Black, but her coat was littered with scars. She was a veteran from somewhere.