A pale sun hazed above the earth, its beams floating down to sear the already thick, humid air. Taking deep breaths that fill his tense lungs, the wolf stands idle and stares intently into the beyond. Within his nostrils flow the world’s scents, a myriad of essences trickling in from throughout the land. Upon its wafting tail are the hot smells of bird eggs and the rustic scent of their twiggy nests; the musky odor of smaller mammals as they creep in and out of their dens to scavenge and the bloody rank of the fox and vulture who wait desperately upon them; the scent of fresh grass and tree sap made more potent by the morning’s dewy veil; the aroma of damp soil, though subtle a smell, as the bank of some distant stream is teased with a lathing tide. From where he stands, half the land is exposed in its breathy textures, and firm stands his legs as he takes it all in.

There’s little that the middle-aged wanderer does not understand about a terra like this, splayed out before him. Even from its border he can taste the struggle and tension on his tongue. There will be lands at war, there will be lovers crossed, and there will be death abundant. Those were the truths that carry. He may not have been an elder, but he had the weathered marks of experience on his hide, cloaked beneath his clotted fur.

His frame lifts gently off the ground, paws lifting in a weightless arc before his hind legs make their muscled release. In a series of three bounds, he descends the soft hill and lands at the base with a sudden sense of reality shaking him. For nearly an hour of the sun’s passing, he had sat on the grassy crest, fermenting his judgements on the land that lie beyond. To stand now on its foreign turf, to be another set of tracks beneath the watching trees, it gave him an eerie sense of smallness. Crouching his head and walking with bent knees and a tucked tail along the chipped forest floor, covered as it was in all manner of shed leaf and stick. The pale one tries to stay alert, keep its ears perked and senses keen on the void of newness it walks. He has trespassed on another’s land before; it is never a safe venture, no matter what past you bear or what future you seek.