The wolf needed to treat his wound but couldn't reach it; he needed fresh blood to wet his tongue, or water, whichever he found first. It was obvious that heading north would not bode well for him—not when that giant woman lurked somewhere in the vicinity—so he was careful and he was quick, heading in among the dark trees while the sky continued to darken with clouds.

It was much too quiet within the forest, he thought. There weren't any birds singing; sometimes he thought he heard a croak of some kind, and that turned out to be one crow or another, calling from either side of the expanse, but there was nothing else. The most subtle of breezes caused branches to scrape. He felt very alone here, and not at all comfortable.

Though the undergrowth shielded him from the wind, it did nothing to deafen the malicious whisper of it. Branches and leaves shuffled together in a sursurration that chafed at his nerves. They sounded like ill-begotten rumouring, like conspiracy -- and he the object of their cruel jokes.

He wondered if he was going insane but discarded the thought with a toss of his head. There were bigger things to worry about, such as his next meal. And the growling of his stomach was almost a comfort; he supposed that insane wolves didn't feel much hunger at all.

A figure ahead, barely visible in the dimness, gave him pause. He thought about remaining hidden, though he knew that his near-white fur did little for stealth, and that the scar on his face did even less.

The stranger smelt of blood. Alarm prickled through him, from his palms to his tail, but he could not move.

A rumble crawled through the tree tops, and then there was a deeper tearing sound as the clouds split, or audibly appeared to, and rain began to volley through the trees.

If it was only rain then the wolf would endure it and move on - but some drops were harder, spherical, and when these grains of hail began pebbling the darkness the sound was alien enough to concern Drusk. Some caught him across the crown of the head, others his lower back where there were gaps in the surrounding branches.

The wolf gave a small yelp when a particularly well-aimed piece stabbed at his back, and he scurried with his haunches tucking, seeking the shelter of somewhere dark; but he barely reached a suitable place before seeing a pair of pale blue eyes staring at him.

He began to bristle as a flash illuminated the forest, and the stranger hiding in the dark; for a moment the stranger was a bright gold, and Drusk felt awe for the first time. The thunder came a few seconds later, drawing him back to reality, and he gave a small whine as if to ask - room for more?

At first he thought it was dry lightning, and anxiety flared through him. He was a filament glowing with momentary terror. His memories of that day were clipped but vivid; most of all he remembered how the flame had moved, disobeying all intuition and godly, reasonable laws of the earth, a demon that had marked him for life. He wondered why the fire and the lightning that had preceded it held such sway over him, though it had been so long. If it was a matter of mind over matter, he resolved that his mind was too feeble to tear up and sabotage the chemical programming of instinct.

Glassy-eyed, he stared at the stranger with half-bared teeth and without comprehension, their unknowing expressions mirrored in the flash of lightning,

but the thunder brought them back into the present, back into their own skin, back into a time and place of real consequence.

Blinking away the afterimage, he hurriedly made room for the stranger to join him so that they would hunker down like runaways in a world that spared them little kindness.

For a second he thought he would be forced backwards, driven away from the shelter. If he had needed to he would have forced himself in there and fought for it, but when the stranger scurried to part a space for him, he was quick to move.

He wedged himself in the dark of the crevasse as another flash illuminated the area; the rumble that followed was farther away. It sounded like a giant stomach, a thought which was most unnerving.

The wolf tucked himself in to a ball as best he could. The position stretched and pinched the wound on his lower back and so Drusk had to adjust again, and a third time, before he found something that wouldn't sting as much.

Each time the sky rumbled he would stare out of the dark, trembling.

It would've been comical if not for the blood -- but maybe the injury, open and weeping, made things more comical, like someone dealt a hand so bad that the only recourse was to laugh. Like sopping strays making puddles on the doormat of a place they'd never belong to.

Who hurt you? he rasped at the hunched figure of the man, the first words he had spoken that day. What if they're following?

Hailstones chattered on the branches overhead. Beyond them he could just glimpse the massive anvils of storm clouds moving glacier-like, northbound, their innards periodically lit by arcs of lightning. He couldn't help but twitch with every flash.

If they find us, you're fucked. And I'm gone.

He felt foolish for acquiescing to a bloodied castaway at his doorstep. But it was too late now.

The stranger gave him a critical look, and he wasn't sure if it was because he had encroached on this hiding spot or because of some other reason; but he spoke, and the wolf listened, except he didn't know the common tongue. He gave a small rumble from his chest as a tiny warning, but did not flash his teeth to the other man.

Something about the tone of his voice made Drusk nervous; but so did the continued storm. He tried to watch the sky and found the rumbling was too unsettling, and the flashes too jarring when they came, so he shut his eyes.

It all reminded him too much of the fire mountain.

He gives the stranger a side-eye, murmuring: Fonas.

Fonas. Was that a name, an explanation, or a curse? All three?

Fonas, he parroted, assuming the former. Gavrel, he gestured at himself. He chewed on his lip, trying to figure out a sane way to emphasize his question.

He worried at his wrist with his teeth, gingerly gestured at the torn skin on the stranger's back, then cocked his head in exaggerated inquiry.

Who? he mouthed, before realizing it was a pointless pantomime anyway, if the man couldn't give him a real description.

At a more measured glance, he seemed to be as scared of the lightning as Gavrel was. Something like empathy percolated through Gavrel's thick skull, made him shiver. Though tall and undeniably imposing, there was a youthfulness to the way the stranger hunched in on himself, and in the anxiety that permeated his entirety.

Old habits, memories from his past life as an elder brother -- they welled up inside of him like oil under cap rock.

The other man parroted the word back at him, and his ear gave a flicker, catching the sound he made after that and connecting to the idea it was a name; but what he had said was not a name, and the miscommunication made Drusk rumble another low note.

He stole another glance, this time watching as Gavrel grabbed at his own wrist, and then motioned towards Drusk, who flinched his eyes away quickly; when nothing came of that but another sound, his curiosity refocused his attention to the exchange.

The man's interest was in his wound. Drusk shifted his weight and tucked his tail closer to himself, but he answered with the only words he knew. Ver chiori. He knew there was a disconnect here, his words were not the same as Gavrel's. Ver, he motioned to himself with a chin-tuck, and to Gavrel, Ver.

He took a moment to pause, think, and try again: Ver gende, he flashed his teeth as light illuminated the forest, and gave him a menacing look; the brightness of his fangs in that moment could've been misconstrued as a threat but he motioned to his wound and gnashed his teeth, and the shadow cast across his back gave the suggestion of a bite.

Gende. He did it again, the show of biting.

Then he licked his lips, hiding away the teeth again, averting his eyes a bit to show he did not mean the display as insult to the man — in case that hadn't been clear before.

Prompting Fona as a name only yielded an ambivalent noise; Gavrel corrected himself, reasoning that Fona perhaps referred to the assailant. He was painfully aware that they were sitting ducks here, beat into hiding by the storm.

Gavrel recognized this game: perfunctory sign language crossed with charades, made only more difficult by the strobing lightning, each flash making his breath catch. Though he knew that a fire could never start in such hail, his nose strained for the telltale scent of smoke. He took in a deep inhale -- from which he couldn't parse anything but wet dirt and iron.

Ver must be wolf, he reasoned. Gavrel suppressed a warning growl when he bared his teeth, but he understood.

He knew what he himself had just said: if they find us, you're fucked, but could he just leave this yearling, who'd had every chance to attack Gavrel but instead was painstakingly translating an answer, morpheme by tedious morpheme, tense as they were in their ambient fear? He knew infection, and how the smallest choices could set an animal on a path of slow, awful, pathogenic decline.

Gavrel resolved to himself -- after the storm passed, he would see the boy to a river, or some body of running water. From there, he could figure out what to do.