Her eyes were intense. It seemed an understatement to think such a thing as they snapped to him like a hawk's might and yet, he noted nothing of hatred behind them. Instead, he saw a fear within their red, a fear that made him look away out of kindness, at least, he thought it might be kindness. Some part of him could not bear to look out of sheer memory - his eyes had likely looked at Underidge the same way. Still, he could not find it within himself to be ignorant of it. As much as he had tried to create a facade for himself in Spirane as a loner and a vagrant, he had not been able to entirely shake off his desire to help. He hadn't been able to shake off the part of him that wanted to be seen as a hero by anybody. For a moment, he felt like a pathetic child with dreams of chasing the fear out of her eyes. He was quickly reminded otherwise.

"Out of the mountains?" The question had begun to leave his lips before he had been able to bury it - "For good?" He seemed almost bewildered for a moment before he caught himself, biting back his query with a wince of perceived pain. The child within him had piqued up enough to slip out the question and now, he chased him away back into the shadows of his mind. It'd be foolish to think that he'd be able to find much companionship here or anywhere. Wolves wanted to leave all the time, right? It was in their nature to roam and find new places. It shouldn't have surprised him and yet, it had. He hadn't expected to find anybody up in the peaks alone so when he had, he had thought himself fortunate. Now, he knew himself foolish.

"We can," he was glad she had made the proposition so that he didn't have to. Now he had been caught out, shameless in his need for companionship (or so, he had assumed his previous question and the bewilderment in his voice had let her on to the fact), he wanted to crawl away too. "I can keep the wind off you and I have a good nose. I just..." He squirmed for a moment before he sighed and rose up on his paws, his shoulders and weight shifting about in order to steady himself. He looked away as he revealed the nub that had once been his back leg, a gnarled thing of scar tissue and tufted fur now. "We'll need to go...slow. But if I hold you back, don't feel as if you cannot go on ahead." Who was he to slow down somebody who wanted out more than he did?