Padding along prairie dog roads across the tree barren landscape, you approach the tree line of a dense forest consisting mostly of conifer trees, and very old ones at that. Your ears flick towards a family of squirrels scattering up twisted limbs, scraping the brittle bark of the ancient trees that stand before you, startled by your presence. You hear birds singing deep within the trees. A gentle wind flutters your fur and the leaves around you. An earthy smell tickles your nose from a nearby blackberry bush. At the corner of your eye, a very narrow, winding path just to the right of you draws your attention.
You give in to the mysterious allure and step onto the path. Low hanging limbs comb through your fur, leaving tiny gifts to remove later. Your sensitive ears pick up the sounds of tiny critters fleeing from the undergrowth alongside the path as you walk along.
The path gradually broadens and becomes clearer to the eye. You hear less rustling from the foliage around you. Suddenly, it's just you, the wind, and the trees.
You stop to investigate the stillness. Pointing your nose toward the wind, you attempt to catch any kind of scent as you listen behind you. You smell and hear nothing but a far away bird in the thicket.
Just before taking another step, you meet the gaze of an unknown wolf as he so quietly steps out behind a wall of brambles. His nose twitches as it catches your scent on the breeze. His eyes never leave you and you dare not move.
"Well traveler, why have you come so far into our borders?" The wolf asks as he calmly steps toward you. His gray eyes shift back and forth between yours, seeming as though he already knows the answer.
You reply with a respectful tone, lowering your ears slightly. He flicks his tail and quickly turns back the way he came.
"Come, I will bring you to our leader." His tone softens a bit. You follow behind him ducking and squeezing through twisted limbs. The thicket seems to swallow you the more you advance further.
"I'm Neo by the way, and you?" His eyes flick back at you requesting an answer as you stumble through the path he's leading you through. You feel like a clumsy pup compared to his graceful bounding through the thick undergrowth.
You reply again and he nods. The brush continues to thicken and your fur begins to snag on the twigs and thorns already stuck in your fur. Neo stops suddenly and you almost bump into him yanking your paw free from a fallen branch. His brown back cascading into a cool bluish white is practically clean from any debris, unlike yourself. Neo noses between what looks like a curtain of thin branches intertwined with vines and leaves. He gently pushes them aside and walks through. He holds it open for you with his tail and turns. He tilts his head for you to follow.
You step beyond the curtain into a clearing. Soft moss kiss your splintered paw pads as you make your way out of the thicket. You look up in awe to see an enormous tree, clearly old as time. Its ashen bark gave way to knots and patches of missing bark with patchy lichen and moss somewhat seeming to hold it together. Although its exposed and gnarled roots were strong and mighty and its needlelike leaves provided a thick, protective canopy above. Pups dove over and under the roots chasing one another as their Pupsitters lie down and watch them with gentle smiles, thankful to have a break from being climbed on all day long.
"This way." Neo says passing in front of you, redirecting your attention. You glance back to take in the shear enormity of the tree once more before following him again. Neo passes underneath a low hanging branch to reveal a well padded den with the softer underside of pine branches lining the floor. Before you could follow him in, two wolves, one after the other, emerge from the den.
The first wolf was of average size, his black back and white unders shimmered in the sunlight with a vibrant red color bleeding in between. His blue eyes watched you expectantly as the other wolf passed behind him. His head lowered, nose twitching.
The other wolf was slightly smaller than the male, but made up for it with her dignified posture. Her blue eyes contrasted her light gray fur, carved with black and white marks upon her back and shoulders. The male stepped ahead of the female covering her throat with his lowered head.
"I am Eska," the female wolf spoke, "and this is my mate, Reinhardt, what brings you to our territory?"
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