Warmer tides washed through the wilds, melting the snow and turning snowflakes into icy raindrops. Quu disliked this weather - her fur was wet and did not dry for days and the skin on the lower part of her crooked paw had turned red and inflamed. It did not help that she had slipped and fallen on an icy path, thus rendering her already incapacitated body nearly useless.

The little den she had occupied at the foot of the mountain had filled in with muddy water, so the young wolf had decided to seek a new place of residence somewhere higher up. Her progress was slow - she was limping and she needed many stops along the way. After an hour or two of fruitless search, she sat down for a longer rest.

To think too. Moonglow was her birth village and she had made herself comfortable since her return. Still - the fact that her path here was so difficult compared to the relative freedom at the coast, felt as if the place itself was resisting Kausiut's extended presence here.

Kau's pleasant silence of her mind was interrupted by a call near the borders. She looked to the side, waited a little to see, if anyone else would respond or come to greet the visitor. No one appeared, therefore she for lack of anything better to do got to her feet again and limped towards the caller.

Her gaze met a man, who looked somewhat familiar and at the same time was entirely foreign. She hesitated, realizing the inequality of power here, if it came to a physical confrontation. But a pleasant smell of food washed those doubts away - the stranger had not come alone. He had brought a gift.

Encouraged by this she closed the distance between them, stopping, where she felt safe and comfortable, regarded him with mild curiousity, waved her tail in a polite greeting and then looked down at the bird, recalling now that she had not eaten today yet.

Kausiut did not have to be told twice. She lunged forward, grabbed the bird and just as quickly retreated back to her earlier spot. There she put it down, sniffed it over and then looked up at the man. Gaze serious and muzzle almost forming a warning growl. In case he changed his mind and wanted the bird back.

She had every intention to leave this guy - for he had fulfilled his purpose - but he had started to talk and Kau felt obligation to reply. Especially, if he was someone Kukutux knew. Stealing from visitors may have been an acceptable behaviour with the Walrus hunters (they did not have friends, they had interests), but it probably would not be looked upon favourably here.

"Kausiut," she told. "Brother?"

Kausiut had surprised him and it did not appear he was entirely fine with the behaviour. She watched him carefully for any sign of him mirroring her actions or do anything else and eventually expressed some calming signals to tell that she was not endangering him in any way now. However, a pointed glance down at the bird, then back at him reinforced, what she had told earlier - the food was hers.

"Rodyn," she repeated, thinking now about the man, who were to become Samani's husband and who had brought gifts to her to earn that right. Kau looked over her shoulder, as if expecting him to arrive any moment, but no one came. "Away," she looked back at Sandulf. "Husband?" she asked, wondering, if the bird he had brought had been meant for someone else inside Moonglow.

"Samani," Kausiut spoke her sister's name, then leaned down, picked the bird and placed it further away from the strange. Even with his blessing to possess it, she did not fully trust his words. Words could hide truth in a way that body language never did.

When he declared that he was a free man, Kau immediately thought of her mother, who had been out of the village recently and when she did return, she brought scents of other wolves with her. Of male gender - their scent had a particular edge, common to all.

"Wife?" she tilted her head to the side, wondering whether besides to visit his brother, he also intended to mingle with the village women.

Kausiut snorted at the implication in quite an unladlylike manner. What would she do with a husband? Though there were practical aspects that came with marriage, it also involved an investment from her. And from watchin her mom and Aiolos and spying on other village couples, she realized that she found the affectionate nature of their relationship something she would never tolerate. So - in short - she needed a free-for-all-and-forever restaurant, not a living being to form an attachment with in exchange for food.

"Village?" she asked next, wondering, which place he called home and why was he not here with his brother.

Kausiut was still a character in making. Most of the time she preferred her own company - it was the easiet way to exist without the unnecessary complication of understanding people's motivations and feelings that came with forming attachments. Yet... even with her quite asocial nature, her time with the Walrus hunters had not only given her the gift of speech, but also a glint of curiousity. Her travel had shown that the world was a much bigger place than she had made it to be. And that other people could be interesting even if it was for purely pragmatic and practical reasons. To conclude it - she was wary of getting attached to anyone (did not feel an inner necessity to do so), but at the same time she had scientific interest in people.

Riverclan. Crowfeather. Silvertongue. Then Sandulf did something she had never seen before. With the help of his paw he drew lines in the mud and she followed his movements attentively. When he finished, she had not figured out, what it was, therefore she placed one of her paws on the line, looked up at him and asked: "What?"

"Map,"Kausiut repeated to herself, watching closely, how Sandulf retraced the lines he had drawn and told, how they would lead to his home. Truth to be told, such visual aid would be of little help to her, if she ever decided to actually go. What attracted her was the fact that you could create shapes, lines and figures - up until then she had thought that creation had been a final process - nothing was new. You could simply arrange, what had already been made in a different formation. Like her games with the treasures.

"More?" she asked, looking up, eager to see, what else the man could draw.

Had Kausiut had the capacity, she would have asked the meaning of this ritual. Was it anything like, what Sialuk liked to do with her bones? Or - she dimly remembered a tall, brooding man naming his set of bone fragments. Did Sandulf also connect with the spirits this way - like shamans of villages could? Yet - she found odd that rather than chanting and talking in detail to try and explain, he said nothing, letting his paws do the work.

To be honest - expect a Da Vinci from a dog, whose paws are not meant for the task of art, is naive. It took a while for Kau to recognize a tree in, what he had drawn, because her mind had first sought more complex, deeper meanings. And when realization came, she huffed, sat back and eyed the image somewhat skeptically. She looked briefly at the man, saying: "Spirits?" Pointed at the drawing and then looked up to the sky.

Sandulf had not understood Kausiut's question, but she correctly assumed that the answer was "no". No particular meaning to doing this other than "fun". It should not have felt odd to her - after all Kau too had once been a child and had spent time playing with things. Yet even then it had felt as if there had been a particular purpose. This... this was different.

She focused on the drawing again, tracing the lines and shapes, then lifted one of her forepaws and drew an awkward line in the snow. She furrowed her brow, not satisfied with her progress, sighed and looked over her shoulder at the food. All this talking and drawing and concentration had made her hungry. The girl got to her feet, shook her coat and stretched.

"Go," she told him, indicating that the conversation was over and that she wanted to leave. "Rodyn," she shrugged, thought a little and then added, "Call. Two." Call him again.