Suddenly the wolf rolled onto his side, rising to his paws and dispelling whatever doubts had begun to form in Tauriel's mind that there was something physically wrong with him. Her lips remained taut, exposing fangs that were at the ready to defend herself if need be. As he rose to his full height - considerably taller than her, but also sickly thin - her hackles flared to full height. She might be shorter than him, but she was agile and strong where he appeared feeble and weak. Once more her mind faltered, lips quivering as doubt in her assumptions crept in once.

When he spoke, her eyes narrowed, focusing on his face and meeting his eyes strongly. You misunderstood Alhazred. She recoiled slightly, lips slowly beginning to lower, watching him suspiciously but making no moves to attack - or flee. With the flash and snap of his jaws though her lips rose once more, his actions speaking louder than his words. For his words weren't entirely coherent, his train of thought seeming to be rather...derailed. But as he continued to speak her brows lowered, stitching together somewhat as she continued to hold her ground. That feeling that something wasn't quite right her continued to creep into her brain, but the situation felt less hostile than she'd continuosly assumed. So her lips lowered once more, finally sheathing her fangs entirely as he stated that he did not wish to bite her. Yet her hackles remained bristled, and as he moved to approach she moved as well.

Rather than retreat, however, she moved to circle out around him, neither increasing nor decreasing the space between them, but allowing them to each get a better view of one another. The intensity of his gaze was still off-putting, but the entire situation was simply so perplexing that she could not justify simply turning tail and leaving this odd man in her wake. "They do," she answered, "once considered indigenous to the plains north of here." When she stopped his motion, she took one final step and then stopped as well, scrutinizing gaze moving across his emaciated form before coming to rest on his wild face once more. "There are less of them now than there once were, though." If he truly was not in league with them, he deserved to know at least that they did not run so rampant in these lands as they had in the past. A dying breed, perhaps. But beyond that, did she really have any reason to help this wolf?