Evening heard the woman before she saw her, her head jerking up suddenly to see who had spoken to close to her. She halted suddenly squinted at the other wolf, whose coat was ablaze with orange sunset light, and quickly squeezed her eyes shut. “Augh!” she shouted, in annoyance and pain. “Sorry, but it’s kinda hard to watch where I’m going when I can’t see!” She was too flustered now to care about being rude, or being attacked by the other female. She flopped down unceremoniously, not caring that her undersides were now soaked. “Do me a favor and tell me when the sun is all the way down.” She kept her eyes firmly closed and laid them on her paws in front of her, looking for all the world like she was asleep. “This is why I don’t go out during the day!” she griped.

Evening kept her face buried under her paws, not caring how she looked or how potentially vulnerable she was. Even this little bit of sun she was getting was making her skin itch and tingle, although that could just as well have been her imagination. Sometimes, the sun scared her, like it was some mythical living orb that haunted her on purpose, dangling up there in the sky like a demon, trying to ruin her day. The second it fell below the horizon, this irrational fear would dwindle and die out as she explored the nighttime world. But by dawn, the fear would come back, tightening her stomach and she would rush for the shelter of the trees, or a hidey-hole in the ground. There was some merit to this fear, however, as she had experienced a full sunburn before, once or twice, in her puphood. The pain had left her immobile for days.

“Actually,” she said, her voice muffled from keeping her face hidden, “I am dayblind, yes.”

Soon enough, though it still seemed to take an eternity, the other wolf told her that the sun was gone. She lifted her head, shook herself, and fully took in the female for the first time. Her lower body was wet from lying down in the floodwaters but she didn’t care. The flame-colored wolf had asked her what was up with her, and she tried to think of a concise answer. “I have a condition, as you can probably see,” she said, motioning with her head for the other to look at her body, pink skin showing through in places, as well as her strange pink eyes and nose. “I am extremely sensitive to sunlight. I sunburn easily. I cannot see well during the day, and even after sundown, I can’t see things that are far away. Everything past a certain point becomes blurry. So, I usually only come out at dusk, and by dawn I am holed up in a forest somewhere where the light can’t touch me.”

Evening did not normally talk this much in one go, so after her speech, which had been brought on by a need to defend her strange actions, she fell silent, looking away from the female and wondering where this interaction was going to go now that the wolf knew of her strange affliction.

Evening was used to people being awkward around her, so this girl’s awkwardness was nothing new. She ignored the spluttering and just focused on her other words. “I’m fine now,” she said, nodding. “When the sun goes below the horizon line, I’m okay. Usually it wouldn’t affect me this badly, but the water was making everything too shiny and making it super hard to see. Thanks.” She turned her head in the direction — she hoped — of where the girl said there was a forest, apparently, squinting and trying to make out anything over there. Nope. She sighed. Damn her near-sightedness! She was being offered an escort there, too. Hmm…

“I would…” She hesitated. Normally, she avoided overstaying her welcome, or being near others in general, for she’d had some bad experiences in the past with others taking advantage of her relative weakness and inability to see. But… But it had been a while since she’d had the company of another, and in the end, her loneliness got the best of her. “I would like that.” Her words came out softly, a bit hopefully, even. “If — if it’s no trouble.”