Over his years, he had become accustomed to others approaching wordlessly; wolves often said more with the way they moved than with their words. And so he gave her little in the way of acknowledgements initially, a single ear having turned back towards her as if to simply say I know you're there. She did not move with predatory ease and, in fact, he found it most particular that he could almost detect a falter in her step, not quite a limp but certainly something in the realms of abnormal. Then again, perhaps he had merely grown too apathetic to even consider that she came with ill intent, his mind having already long accepted his inevitable end. Did it really matter how one's life was ended when they were ready? He supposed it was only an issue when one did not have a choice to die, not the matter in which one actually died. Then again, he had a lot of thoughts lately. Few of them ever came to any conclusion. They drifted, roamed, danced through the sky, curled little breaths lost to winter.

When she shuffled down beside him, only then did he truly turn his face towards her. Few did that, after all. He shifted slightly, the points of his bones against stone though he had grown accustomed to the dull ache of it and so he merely sighed. Join them in their dance? His eyes moved back to the sky, green light raking across the sky like a river or snake. "Ah, I hope...I don't have to...do so much," he paused, his breath slow to draw in before he shrugged, "when the time...is here." He grinned at himself, his own jest amusing to him and apparently her. If he had a choice, he thought, he would certainly not spend his time in death dancing. He'd rather rest, perhaps dig deep under some world tree among the roots and worms.

He did not say much more than. Instead, he closed his eyes for some moments and allowed himself to feel the cool breeze as it creeped down to his skin; embraced the feeling of the cold stone beneath him, hard and unforgiving; listened to the far-off calls of bird and deer in the night. As beautiful as it all were, he did truly hope the world beyond was a quieter place.