Duck Lake cloud shadows on the mountain and our shadow on the mountainside

sorry this is so long and not much interaction, i got carried away LMAO. no need to match it ofc. also pping sakhmet a bit, lmk me if it needs to be changed!

He's become more accustomed to the feeling of snow beneath his paws, and to the chill that never seems to leave him now that winter has come. More than accustomed, really; he enjoys it. The cold helps him focus on becoming numb, and numbness is far preferable to his typical range of emotions. Helios is gone, and he has no other comfort that is not tainted by foul memories, so he clings to the cold and his solitude as if they are beloved childhood toys. In some ways, they are.
It's easier to find solitude outside the borders of Uaine Gorsedd, and that is where he lingers most of the time. Though, truth be told, he enjoys more than the solitude of unclaimed lands. He has started to crave the foreign sights of places he has never been before, the thrill of new discoveries and new acquaintances he never needs to meet again. There is no pressure in traveling aside tending his own needs, and that alone makes it more appealing than anything else. So he finds himself here, treading lightly alongside the lake's edge yet somehow a million miles away.
He has met many strangers in the last few weeks — wolves of vastly differing demeanors, wolves small and large, pale and dark, kind and cruel. The only theme among them seems to be a strange sort of certainty in the way each had projected themselves, a solidity of self and uniqueness that Zephyr has yet to learn. None of them seemed to doubt themselves the way he does, or regret their words immediately after saying them. Because they know how to say what they want and be what they want, he thinks, settling by the water and peering out across the eerily-still lake, and I don't. That's part of my weakness. His gaze drifts down to the smooth blue surface directly below him. He's startled by what he sees, immediately recognizing his own platinum fur and skinny limbs, and the healing wound on his shoulder.
He's always imagined himself a bit like Helios and dad, only smaller and lighter, a little thinner. But the reflection staring back at him reminds him more of his mother, like some freakish pale caricature; grotesquely slender and almost alien compared to other wolves, with features sharp enough to cut and wary, darting eyes. His gaze traces the harsh upward slope where he should have a strong, broad curve of the jaw, the spindly tapering of his muzzle, the absurdly wide folds of ear-flesh tucked awkwardly against his skull. Narrow and odd, and nothing like Helios. He swallows, shifts, skin crawling. Even the smallest movement seems wrong, suddenly, like he doesn't quite fit into his own body. He shifts again, restless, imagining his skin as a suffocating, unwieldy husk that will split and fall away at any moment. It might even be a relief, but he knows it will not happen. Everything about me is wrong, he realizes, turning away from the water abruptly.
The ruddy girl in the distance is a welcome distraction from the moment he lays eyes on her. He's almost relieved enough to forget that she's a girl — but not entirely, so he lets her approach him, lingering by the water's edge and studying her in silence. He doesn't truly desire company, or he might have come up with something to say already, but he isn't about to turn her away either. A bad distraction is better than no distraction at all, surely; anything to block out the lingering image of himself for awhile.