As the hot blood gushed from her body to warm her tongue and lips, Cvijet's mind strayed to times long past. She recalled that night in Saw Tooth, when her father first sang his favourite ditty after her mother's death, and Moth heard it. She remembered the moonlight bathing the two, sealing their fate as they came together, both naively innocent to the ways of the world. Cvijet had been young then, not quite understanding the gravity of the situation, and even if she had she doubted she would have intervened, the happiness on her father's maw enough to break her heart. Sadness clouded her mind at the memory, now that she knew all the pain that was to follow. Her soul cracked afresh at the vision of her poor, brave father's bones (minus one leg that he'd lost years before), rotting above the earth, scorched and then bleached by the fire that fell from the heavens. Her tongue paused mid-lick and she heaved a sigh so regretful it almost seemed as if the world held its breath to hear her utter it.

The rocks that grew up like lifeless plants around her shielded from the worst of the icy wind, although her thick, arctic wolf pelt would have kept her warm regardless. She fondly remembered her mother,a wolf built for the tundra. She had heard stories of it from her family, that it was the desert of the North, a rolling expanse of white so cold it burnt the pads, dead to eyes that refused to see. And yet, to those that dwelt there, it was a vibrant landscape brimming with riches. There a fat, blubbery seal lazing on the pack ice, blissfully unaware of the gargantuan ice bear that hunted it. Here, a small fox, white as snow, waiting for the wolves to make a kill. And when they did, when the earth ran red, the song they sent up was so hauntingly beautiful, that the sky would gift them with its own song in the form of lights, lights that moved and danced to the wolves jubilee. Cvijet often ached for that place she had never visited, wondering if such an enchanting terra could banish the ghosts of her past, brand the nightmares away. So far, it was the only thing that might.

So focused was she in that moment, so caught up in her own dismal thoughts that she did not notice the stranger until he was almost upon her. His voice cut through her reverie with startling force, rousing her to wakefulness with its exotic twang. She jumped, startled, and in the process placed her wounded paw back to earth. It fell with a thud and she jerked it upwards again, pain etched in the wrinkles around her muzzle. When she had gathered her wits, she raised her muzzle to face her assailant. He was small, smaller than her even, his body built for stealth and speed, his frame so light it appeared as though the wind would blow him away. She noted the odd shiver travel along his spine, and realised without quite meaning to that his pelt was thin and sparse, built for heat and not for cold as hers was. Upon his maw was plastered a look of concern, worry clearly visible in his eyes. He had most probably smelt the blood her skin wept and heard her cry.

Rookie error.

Shaking her head, she eyed him wearily, not quite sure what to make of him. Moladion coughed up a great variety of wolves, and Cvijet had met almost all of them. This one though, was a type she could not place. Her poet father's sagacity, passed to her in her genes, wasn't even enough that she could place him. He refused to fit inside any preconceived box that she had in her head, an outsider even there. A distant caw reminded the girl that she was staring, a rude gesture to a wolf. Averting her eyes cordially, she spoke, not ble to help the hint of sarcasm that crept into her voice,

“That depends. If you speak of my wounded paw, then yes I am ok. If you speak of my wounded soul, well............I have heard of nobody recover from that.”

Although revealing, she was not fishing for pity or aid. She just could not help being transparent, revealing too much of herself too quickly. It was one of her most endearing and dangerous flaws.She did not intend upon baring her very core to this stranger, despite the fact that he carried a sadness about him that drew her to him, reminded her of herself so that she had to look somewhere else, anywhere else except that face, peering so intently at her own.

And that is how they stood on that stark winter's day, two strangers staring into a mirror, into a paradigm shift that they didn't understand, each naked before the other, each vulnerable as a newborn pup. The question now wasm what would happen next?