The vixen’s childish giggle played like a sweet music against his ears. His eyes never left her and past the golden glow that he was so much enjoying, he noticed she had a mixed coat of various shades of grays and browns and even some white on the underside. The colors all intermingled, quite unlike his coat. The white, black, and crimson colors on his fur were all mostly broken into their own sections. Black held the top of his face like mask, wrapping his ears and cheeks, as well as a small inky dip of black at the very end of his tail. The entire upper portion of his body was painted crimson, as if someone had held him up by his legs and dipped him upside-down partially into a vat of blood. Except real blood would have dried and become a dark reddish brown instead of the scarlet red that his fur wore. The rest of him – his legs and tail, the lower part of his face, and the lower part of his chest in almost a bat shape – that’s where the white fur found its place. Their coats together were so contrasting; his colors were sharply separated and hers laid together so gently along her frame.

“You think so?” she asked. He actually wasn’t surprised by the questioning response to the compliment he paid. As far as he was concerned, girls typically fit into either one of two categories when it came to compliments; low confidence, meaning they wouldn’t be expecting to hear anything so kind and possibly wouldn’t believe it, or over confidence, in which they would still probably say something like that because society demanded a she-wolf not be too proud. You see, it was unlady-like to accept a compliment in this society, lest she be called conceited.

From what he could tell of her, though, he suspected she was sincere in her question.

“Usually people lie to avoid confrontation. You and I, we’re practically strangers. I have no quarrel with you. So why would I lie to you?”

The conversation carried on to when he introduced himself and she emitted another soft, musical giggle as she answered. Kaili… he thought the name a couple times over again in his mind, planting it there for good. It fit her. Most names fit whoever they belonged to, which was such a strange concept to him. Names were just words, most of them not real words at that, so how was it that these fake words fit individuals differently? He didn’t have the answer, and he wasn’t interested enough to ponder it deeply right now. His focus was definitely on the wolf in front of him. At this point in conversation, it was typical for Leonidas to offer his conversational companion a nickname. Leonidas was a mouthful and his name actually worked for several nicknames; Lee, Leo, Leon, he even had one wolf call him Das. His preferred was Leo because it was simple but still held onto a significant sound from his actual name. Lee was too short and Leon changed the emphasis of the word. Then something he hadn’t expected, Kaili concluded her own introduction by assigning the nickname herself. He responded with a genuinely hearty chuckle.

“That’s perfect, my dear. I’m usually the one to suggest it, actually, nice to meet a wolf with some initiative.”

That handsome, charming smile had not fallen from his face yet, although it occasionally shifted into an equally handsome smile that was more thoughtful, along with a quirked brow. Most notably before he asked or after he was asked a question, like now.

“Kaili, hm? So where does someone find the roots of a wolf named Kaili? Are you a homegrown Blossom Forest lupine or is this a new home?”

Had he not been absent for so long, Leo probably could have answered the question with a whiff in her direction. But Blossom Forest was a very, very massive territory in its own right, and the smells of all the different regions throughout it would take months to reacquaint himself with.