I cannot tell if the girl is excited by the storm or if she is scared; my eyes glitter as I watch from the shadows and her tell thumps the ground. The scent of the plain awakens a beast inside of me. Memories seem to swallow me of times in the den with my brothers and sister, of my cousins who I have no seen in so very long, of the bear that had come roaring at my uncles and took the life of two and maimed the other. She is a reminder of everything that had at once seemed so good to me. I find that it sticks in my craw and makes me irritable, thus I slither from the shadows. Trying to temper my voice in a manner that is not as cutting as it normally is becomes a difficult feat and I am pretty certain I failed but I don't offer her a smile because I am not truly happy. Why smile if one is not happy?

The boom of thunder is enormous in the caverns, bouncing against the walls and into my skull, jumbling my thoughts but I stand reticent, waiting for her to speak again. There is a friendliness in her that I think is a bad trait. Others used such friendliness for bad vices. Did she want to get attacked? Raped, perhaps, for winter was coming? It is a vile thought and I am given to feel disgust at myself for even thinking it - not that I would ever do such a thing, it is just that I know how the world works. It is a cruel, large thing that will take and take until you have nothing left. "You must have visited there. I can smell it on you, faint. I have a good nose," I say, my deep voice assured of my own vanity. She could call me cocky, I didn't care, but it was true. I had trained and honed my senses and they were not clouded by the rain.

Isolde.. the name seems familiar and distant. My brow furrows slightly, giving away the manner in which I consider it, not quite answering her question just yet. Instead I eye her, thinking she seems like someone I had met before but not recalling who. "Why are you familiar to me?" The words are blunt, accusing almost, as if she would hide something from me. "You can call me Fael." I don't give her my full name because I am not trusting, unlike her, and a name could always be used against you. In the end a name and heritage is all we had anyways.

I don't sit as I watch her, don't attempt to make her feel comfortable because I am not foolish. My mother once told me the story of a time she roll in a field of daisy's and was met by a recent mother who had been kind until she hadn't been anymore. Until she had attacked natu. It seemed the world was full of the kinds of wolves who were hidden amongst the light, shadows shielding themselves under the guise of kindness.