The air was crisp and the wind carried thousands of faint scents, thousands of faint promises. The fog that spilled between the trees was thick, cool, and tangible. It entered her nose like water, obscuring the forest and the scents that lay within. It was past midnight, the nearly-full moon curving around the peak of the sky to descend and eventually dip beneath the horizon. The stars, pinpricks of light, dainty, like dewdrops on a spider's web, shifted too, almost undetected. With the fog, and the rolling smudges of clouds in the distance, came the threat of rain. Or, rather, at this point it was a promise of rain, something hopeful, something sacred. The she-wolf parted her primitive predator jaws and licked her lips in thirst.
The young wolf had been travelling for weeks and was thin, a husk of what she once was, a trellis of bone with skin stretched taut over the top. She stepped cautiously further into the woods, which were so thick with deciduous trees she could hardly see more than a couple yards ahead, and with the fog it was even less visible. Her ears swiveled and pricked with each sound, each scurry of a small mammal to hide from her, from the powerless wolf that ached with each step.
This had to be it. This had to be home. Not only did it fit her needs, but she had no other choice. She would succumb to starvation soon. Thirst, if the forest failed to provide her water. The female shook her head. No. These forests were oases, and would provide every time. While the mother mountains summoned the clear water, ice-cold, bubbling up from springs, the woods gathered the runoff. She just had to find it.
The carpet of needles was a relief on her sore paw pads, and she sat to lick them tenderly.
The sudden scent of another wolf was like an electric shock to her senses, and the female rose to her feet, fur rising. A black she-wolf trotted towards her, tail up, and the brown wolf relaxed, if only slightly.
