Hougeda reminded Ephraim of the grotto that he'd been born into, and the familiarity of stone on all sides was of immense comfort to him. It made him miss his mother, his father, his brothers and sister, too. The scent of salt and rock was all around him and made him unable to shake thoughts of his family and his heart was weighed down by grief. Would he ever see them again? Would he and Rhakios ever get to tussle again, would Raleska yell at him and demand that he play again, would he and Illidan share another tug-of-war match over a rabbit's leg?

To try to quell his sorrow over his missing family, Ephraim turned his attention to his peers in Hougeda. Several adults made frequent appearances and the other pups were ever present. Ephraim was a little older than them, but there was no way for him to know it. Drageda's brood was energetic, far moreso than he was, and for the first couple of days he had been too reclusive to engage them. He spent a lot of time on his tummy, watching but shying away from contact.

But now he was watching the black-and-white one, with the shock of gold fur across his mantle, at whatever he was doing, and his tail stirred slowly through the moss. @Tux and Bat were most similar to his siblings in appearance and he was less nervous about them than Kiwi and Silkie for their familiarity. He swallowed thickly, stomach flip-flopping, cracked his narrow muzzle and issued a shy, "h-hi," that might hardly have been heard whisking over the carpeted cavern floor.

His shy greeting was returned with a word that, unbeknownst to him, came from a different language. It sounded much the same to him and he didn't notice the difference. What he did notice was Tux's wiggling tail, and his picked up a gentle wag to match it. Since being separated from his family, the boy worried that he wouldn't find a connection like the one he shared with his siblings among Drageda's youth, but step one was so far proving successful.

"'Kay," said the shy coywolf as he straightened up with a thin smile. His life would have panned out so differently had his family not been displaced; he had once thought himself superior and found the company of others boring, but that was when his life was cushy and easy. It was amazing how much he craved company and acceptance now, in strange waters. "Whatcha wan' play?" Chase-the-surf was a good game, but there was no ocean here, and he hadn't played much since fleeing with his family from the bear. Part of him had sort of forgotten how.