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The striped male happily approached the stranger who had similar attributes to himself. He had not yet met wolves outside of his family members. And his mother did not have the hooves and horn buds that he and his siblings had, but Hemming didn’t see her as different. They were all wolves in his mind and he just thought that some had more features than others, just like his striped face and back. Horns, hooves, antlers, feathers, scales. They were no different than having stripes or spots or a mottled pelt. At least not to Hemming. But he would soon learn that not all of the wolves out there felt that way. As the male happily skipped up to the femme, speaking out to her he didn’t realize that he would frighten her. She got her own hooves tangled up and with the slick sand she fell down. Hemming winced sympathetically as she stumbled, and he approached more slowing, wanting to help her. But as she got back up, she went to go shake out the sand from her pelt and she fell once again. Hemming wanted to say something to her to help, but he didn’t want to embarrass her anymore than she probably was. So he acted like she wasn’t slipping around in the sand and just stood there, lifting one hooved limb at a time awkwardly until she got her footing again. This time she shook out one limb at a time so as not to lose her balance. He wondered if paws like his mother’s were any easier to maneuver than the hooves these two had.
Finally the femme spoke to him in return, repeating his name which made the boy giggle. She was funny. Not laughing at her in a mean way, but just giggling at her words. ”Hello Giaza, it’s nice to meet you! And I didn’t know that there was different kinds of water. I thought it was just…water.” The male padded forward, his hooves dipping into the cool waves. He reached down with his muzzle, his tongue gingerly dipping into the water to see if what she had said was true. He quickly withdrew his head though, shaking it abruptly at how salty this water truly was. She was right, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite that bad. ”Ew…yah you’re right. This water is different. You really think it goes on forever?” His gold orbs widened for a moment at the thought, and he looked out to the horizon for a moment before turning back to meet her gaze. As her words went on to explain her feelings about the hooves and the horns, Hemming winced, and turned away from her. ”So…you think I look stupid? I thought this was…normal. Why can’t it just be normal?” He turned once more to look at her. Hemming was almost all white with a black stripe and speckled tail…whereas she was almost all black with some mottled white to her. Were their horns no different than just having different pelt colors? ”Isn’t it just…different? You and I look very different in color, but is one normal and one…stupid?” Hemming’s gaze flickered back to her for a moment before looking away, not wanting to show that her words stung him.
As Giaza went on to speak more, her words were…worrisome. Was she already so filled with hate for her appearance that she would do something as drastic as to try and remove parts of her body? Was she going to remove the hooves as well and hope that paws magically grew instead? Surely she would just hurt herself…or worse…trying to get the horns out of her skull. As disturbing as her words were, he didn’t want to offend her either. This could be his first friend after all. ”Um…I don’t know if that’s the best idea. You could really hurt yourself. I think that the horns look good on you.” Hemming hoped that by giving her a compliment maybe she would not want to get rid of a part of her. And he wasn’t lying, he did indeed think that the horns and hooves they both adorned were cool. Wouldn’t it make others jealous that they didn’t have some? ”Maybe one day you will grow to like them, and be happy you never got rid of them.”
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**Hemming**Male Cadejo**Pup**Son of Siku and Helheim**Brother to Hjalmar, Valencia, and Brynjar**Violet
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