The girl apologized again, and all Aiden could do was shake his head with an amused sort of smile. She really had no reason to be sorry; it was all his fault. The conversation had already moved on, though, so there was nothing he could really say about it. Except…now she was apologizing again, and this time for being in his way? The boy wasn’t sure he could follow that logic.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Aiden told her, shaking his head for emphasis. “You weren’t in my way. Actually, I sort of got in your way, if you think about it. Pretty forcefully, too.” He gave a quiet, nervous chuckle as he lifted his stinging paw and gave it a testing flex that brought about a small wince, but his tail waved to show everything was in good humor.
Aiden’s large, white ears fell back against his head the moment the girl asked about his mother and father, the fur of his cheeks hiding a humbled blush as his eyes fell to the snowy forest floor. No, his mom and dad weren’t close by. In fact, his mother had died giving birth, and the wolf he had only recently found to be his father had made him leave the pack, so…there was that. But, hearing another question follow the first, Aiden looked back up with a quick shrug and lift of his ears, totally okay with passing up the former question. “There haven’t been any bad wolves,” Aiden said with a good-natured smile. “And I’m pretty good at protecting myself.” He was pretty proud of that, actually. After all, how many pups his age could boast about traveling so far? And all on his own, too.
The girl went on to tell him about how she lived in the pack nearby with her family, and the boy tilted his head in interest, tail giving another pleasant wave. Aiden had to say, that sounded pretty nice—you know, that she had her whole family together and was from a pack. He would consider her fairly lucky, because he knew from experience that not everyone had a pack or grew up with a mom, dad, and sister, but, yet again, his mind took another turn at the mention of “the incident”. His head tilted around to the other side, expression turning rather curious, but then she jumped into a nervous stutter, and he felt it best was best not to ask what she meant. Instead, he just smiled and nodded at her invitation to escort her home.
“Yeah, of course,” Aiden said, straightening up with a few more waves of his white banner. “It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make sure you got home okay. Which way do we—“
The boy was cut off by the sound of a high-pitched howl, followed by the sound of something crashing through the winter forest, heading straight for them. The boy’s full attention turned toward the quickly building noise, his body automatically shifting to put himself between the girl and whoever was barreling toward them. He hadn’t had time to think about the voice or who it might belong to before the other girl burst suddenly out of the sparse forest brush in a flurry of movement, yaps, and whines. As was only natural, Aiden flinched in response to the girl’s sudden entrance, but he quickly recovered, straightening himself up with a curious set of eyes doing their best to follow her as she ran literal circles around he and his…acquaintance? He might call the first girl a friend, except he was hit with the sudden realization that he still didn’t know her name.
Aiden looked on with an amused smile as the newcomer gave the first girl the third degree, sniffing her all over, his tail picking up a steady, gentle wave. His tail came to a halt, however, as the new girl whipped around, bristling with a growl, and the boy leaned as far away from her on his long legs as he could manage. But the girl seemed to calm down, so Aiden let himself relax. The confusion never left his face.
“I’m Aiden,” the boy answered the new girl’s demand almost cautiously, his iridescent cerise and cerulean shift eyes flicking from her to the first girl behind her, wishing he knew their names so he could make some sense of his own thoughts. Though, thinking about it, the new girl was now talking about “Momma”, which meant she was probably the first girl’s sister, and he’d already stated to wonder if “Masque” and “My Sister” were one and the same. It never did well to assume, though. “And, um, I was just about to walk your sister home,” he added for further clarity as to what, exactly, he was doing there with girl number one. And, with his confusion deepening thoughtfully, as an afterthought, “Neither of you should be out here by yourselves, actually…”