It was with a lot of relief that the seasons had switched from winter to springtime. After all, Tiresias was a kalak wolf – they were built for warm grasslands… not this… frigid cold. Their pelts were thin and sleek, and never could grow in any thicker. It was for that reason that the two winters that he had lived through thus far were painfully threatening to his survival. It was hard for him to keep warm, to hold weight, to live at all. The first winter, he had survived by having his family around him, keeping him heated in their den… they all supported each other by simply sleeping together. This winter though… this winter had been different. He had started it off alone, but it had been Tiresias’ luck that had allowed him to run into Castiel again. Without him, life on the beach during the winter would have proved itself difficult. Afterall, food was scarce in the winter, both because they were travelling somewhere warmer or because they were huddling deep within their dens. But it was also coldest down here – with the biting wind, the splash of the water… but Castiel’s presence had made life simpler. Yes, while Tiresias was exploring he was still subject to the cold and frost, but while he slept, he was warm. They had begun by sleeping on opposites sides of the cave… and even that helped. By week by week, the more time that they spent together, the closer their two bodies got – whether it was on purpose or not. And more than that, Castiel brought him food – his sight giving him the one advantage that Tiresias could not claim. Tiresias had made note of it, but had not really thought of it – after all, it made sense for two bachelors to keep each other warm. But now that the world had reawoken and life had been breathed back into the land, surely that would change now… wouldn’t it?

‘I brought you breakfast. There’s fish or a squirrel if you decide that fish is not palatable to you.’

Tiresias stretched out, his front paws rubbing against the hard stone of the cave floor as they swept over his face. He wanted to hide the light from beneath his lids, but it was no use – he was already awake and sentient, pulled from dreams that he would never be able to accomplish or grasp onto. Still, his body remained still for a moment until the smell of breakfast so completely flooded his nares that he could not resist his hunger any more. With a low growl, he stretched out again, but his growl turned into a chuckle as his stomach echoed his response with a grumble of its own. “So you finally decided to come through on your promise of fish, did you Cas?” Tiresias rolled over onto his side first… but then laughed and rolled over onto his back. He tilted his head back so that his forehead rested on the ground and began to wriggle his way toward the prey like a snake. It was rare for him to be so playful, so open and free with his emotions, but he had found that around Castiel, he was more relaxed and open with himself. Bit by bit, he got closer and closer to his goal until he was at the point of no return – the one fork in his road, and now he had to decide left or right. The maned wolf paused and turned his head the one way, inhaling deeply so that his chest rose away from his spine. It was squirrel – of that he had no doubt. It was one thing that he was used to eating a lot of – yes, they were swift, but they were predictable. Immediately, Tiresias whipped his head the other way and wriggled his way closer to the fish. He knew that Castiel had caught it specifically for him – after all, in one of their earlier conversations Cas had alluded to not liking fish at all.

His nares ran into the fish first and he froze, thrown off by the slimy texture. Reece rolled over and inched closer, his tongue slipping out so that he could examine the meal. It was scaled, like plates of soft rock in overlapping sheets. Tiresias crinkled his nose and reached out to tenderly hold the fish… he needed to find out to get beneath the skin to get the meat. “How do you… navigate these… plates?” Tiresias snorted before trying to carefully start peeling off the… the scales. Bit by bit, he made progress but along the way, he got scales stuck between his teeth, up under his gums, caught on his lips, glued to his skin. By the time he got to the actual meat, he was annoyed and exhausted, but he did find the flesh to be delicious. The taste stuck with him long after he had finished the meal, and over all he found it to be a good choice. “It’s… not bad. I just wish it was not that much work. First you have to catch them and then you have to … skin them? And not for much meat. Was there a way it could be easier?” Tiresias began to groom himself, and every few seconds he spit out the scales much the way a trucker would spit out split sunflower seeds. They were everywhere… and once he had finished cleaning himself he realized that that would not be the end of it all – after all, their clean den floor was now littered with his trash. Tiresias sighed and heaved himself to his paws, and slowly began to sweep the floor in front of him out toward the mouth of the den. He could feel his tail furs catching on the scales but he kept going until he could feel the sun warming his flesh. With a smile, he turned back toward the inside of the cave. “Did I get them all?”