Permafrost Hollows Fight or flight

Tapeesa flinches when his words reach her ears, unintelligible on her ragged ears. She might have pressed further into the grass for concealment but as it was the wolf was moving closer!

He was a brute of a man - all height and strength and thick limbs where she is slight and small and weak. His coat marked him a southerner and fear immediately struck her heart for her greatest fear was the harsh men of the south. He was a myriad of blacks and grays and whites - all the shades of truth. 

Uki could only catch glimpses of him through the grass, huddled into a protective ball as she was amidst the reeds. Confusion settled, lending suspicion to every snap of a branch or splash of the stream, as he neither approached nor spoke beyond his greeting. A pregnant silence extended between them, broken only by Tapeesa after several long moments. 

She crept from the grass on tentative steps, as if stepping into the moonlight itself was life threatening. The berserker approached, leaving some leap of space between them, a hint of the feral retaliation that would occur if attacked gleaming in her silver eyes. 

"I don't understand," she murmurs softly, pronouncing them carefully so he might understand her tongue was not the same as his own. "I do not speak English," there's venom to the word, for she hates the idea of all things English and southern.