Deepwood Weald even the heather's crimson red

He heard it first, the sound of someone or something rustling in the growth come to an abrupt crash. Up until then, the increasingly close cacophony of travel had only set his guard and slowed his progression; for as territorial as he wanted to be, there was not quite a rhyme or reason to make the attempt when he held onto so little of the weald as his own. It would have been just as unwise to accost the wrong sort and engage in a tangle that would have left him worse for wear, however inclined he may have felt. But the fickle wax and wane of his emotions were guarded, swiftly overrode by curiosity when he did not quite hear the imaginary fiend stir from whatever pitfall had rendered it fell, and it drew him in.

A few steps onward and through a gentle rise revealed in the haze not at all what he had expected. That was, if he had expected anything at all. Against the glistening greens and dark earth as an equally pitch wolf with a decidedly resigned look of simmering irritation that set his eyes alight. An amused puff of air escaped Dirge, who was all but out of the wolf's line of sight—it did not take much for him to find the cause of what left someone undignifiedly strewn.

"I knew I should have chewed that root the last time it caught me," he murmured, almost more to himself. "You all right there? Afraid to tell you that you'll only find more of that nonsense around here to trip you up." A drawn in breath turned up sea salt and without saying it, he wondered what would drive the coastal sort inland. All he had met seemed keen on staying there, anyway.