It had been almost ten days since he had last eaten. Ten days of wandering and routing through a land and territory he had never explored before. Perhaps Anselm would have better luck inland - and this is what spurred him onward, upward.

He crossed the meandering river without hesitating long upon its banks, and presumed that he would make it back to the forest (Horizon Ridge, though he knew not its name) by nightfall. The boy was easily confused as the dark settled in around him. One copse of trees looked just like the last, and a few times he had to stop and gather his wits in order to avoid backtracking too harshly. A forest was ahead of him - and he persumed, erroneously, that it was the area which he sought. The place where he had entered the wilds.

Anselm was back to his usual routine. His head was low, his nose actively snuffling along the forest floor, and he traced eccentric trails between the clustered roots and rocks. A few times he thought he could smell something of value - a vole nest, or the stink of a wandering fox, - but confirmation never arrived. When he did stop, it was brief and quite sudden; there was a scent, very dim and very musty with soil, that reminded him of rabbit.

So, without thinking, the boy began to dig.

At first, as he scratched away at the dirt, he expected the prize to be near the surface. It wasn't common for wolves to hide things too deep - although, as he broke through the frozen topsoil, he came to realize the benefit of such action. Meals would stay cold and safe in their holes if they were deep enough. Anselm did not stop digging as he pondered, and eventually loosed a segment of broken rabbit-leg from its confines. Before he could duck his head in to inspect the loot, to grab it and tear away a morsel, a warning slid out from between the trees.

Anselm lifted his head quickly, knocking some loose dirt back in to the hole with his nose. The stranger was large and gray - of similar build to his cousins and those of his own ilk - and for a moment it felt like he had been set upon by an agitated aunt or uncle; by far the most unnerving experience, considering he had never been accosted in such a manner by his aging pack-mates.

All thoughts of the rabbit were lost to him then. He stepped back from the hole and stood in a neutral position, his limbs growing stiff, his head resting in the usual shoulder-level position it had begun slouching in to since his flight from his natal pack; but he did not defer entirely to this stranger. Instead, he simply watched him - unwilling to leave. Perhaps he could barter for a meal.

The steel-wrought boy was squared-off and adjacent to the pale adult, and yet when the adult spoke he did not waver - save for his tail which gave a short wag in an effort to show friendliness. Stealing was not something Anselm had ever done before but he would do it - and again, in the future - if it was necessary for his survival. The hole was sitting nearby his feet, while the stern-faced stranger was still at least one wolf-length beyond; he had some leeway. He could try to grab the rabbit and leave, since conversation seemed like a poor choice. It was clear the stranger wasn't about to let Anselm take something without payment - and the boy did not want to pay in blood.

Perhaps he could delay the inevitable. Use what skills were forced upon him by his parents to coax something out of the silver man. Diplomacy had been neither his mother nor father's strong suit, but Anselm was no fighter. He was no warrior like his brethren - a fight would be a bad idea. Is there no way to convince you," Anselm drawled, as he side-stepped to be slightly closer to the burrow; he loomed over it now. To give up a morsel of scrap? A single bite?" If his father could see him now, practically begging before this ruler. Thorsten would have denied any relation.

His plea did not go unanswered, but it was not the kindness that Anselm was hoping for. Instead he was refused. So, with a small shrug, Anselm began to shift as if to depart on good terms - but then he dove face-first towards the soil, inserting his sooty snout in to the cache. He did his best to snap at the cache with his front teeth, and felt his fangs catch upon something, but as he withdrew it was hardly worth it; the rabbit's haunch was partially frozen and still mostly buried, leaving only a tendril of hairy flesh to steal away. With this morsel hanging limp and akimbo from his jaws, Anselm gave way to a real retreat. He backed up a few paces and then spun around, hoping to outrun the grey warden.

With the raggedly torn limb hanging from his muzzle, Anselm shot away from the pack's borders - and the guard - but slowed when he noticed the lack of a tail (not physically of course, his tail was fully intact). The guard had not been fast enough. With adrenaline still pumping through his veins, Anselm's instincts rose to full power and told him to run, just to keep running; but instead he doubled back and paraded his prize before the stranger, keeping his head aloft while the rabbit limb was held tightly, aged skin flapping with the effort. This lasted only a few minutes, and once the goading stopped, Anselm once more slipped in to the darkness of the trees - and he was gone.