Noctisardor Bypass baby, would you love me the same?

Tag for reference!

He took his time getting used to the layout of the village @Mahler & @Ciri had introduced him to, one gentle step at a time and curious eyes all about. Mateo was starting to feel homesick and would miss the sounds of tides and seagulls during his early morning trips, but that did not mean he thought Rivenwood couldn't become a place to call home eventually.

He'd just need to get used to things around here.

This morning was not one where he'd hear seagulls overhead, nor breath in the salty air to clear his head -- instead it was the sound of summer cicadas and the fragrance of soil with dead foliage -- and through this same foliage, he'd seek out herbs. Usually his daily runs were done outside the territory but seeing as he no longer lived on the shores, this might've not been necessary....

Wylla clapped her jaws shut to the tune of a cicada chirring, tongue curling against the roof of her mouth as she finished her yawn. It was a stifling morning, a commonality in the valley. Maybe she had become too accustomed to the mountains. Her thin coat wasn't well suited to winters at high altitudes, but the summer heat was bothering her a lot more than it ever used to.

She wove between trees in search of breakfast, but what she found instead was a vaguely familiar red-gold pelt. Wylla froze, gaze boring into the back of a wolf who resembled Taikon so much that her hackles spiked. Mahler had told her he was gone! How could he possibly have allowed this cur to return?

What the hell are you doing here?!

Nose in the ferns and ears fixated on the sounds of loud insects, he couldn't quite catch on to the fact that he was being approached until it actually happened. The angry barkings of a feminine voice stung his ginger audits and caused them to flatten, his inky gaze swirving along with his lowered posture to find a small woman he'd never met before -- and she was striding towards him with the fuming aura of an angry bull. The physician just got here, and he already had to figure out a way to difuse a stressing situation. "I....."

Was there a reason why she'd been angry at him? Had he wandered to close to someone's den without acknowledging it?

"I.....live here, ma'am...."

Wylla was pleased that Taikon had the good sense to flatten his ears and crouch. He had every right to be submissive and worried in her presence; the arrogant man had ruined everything about Sagtannet for her with his actions. Her lips parted to reveal her teeth while the guilty party stammered out what sounded like an excuse. Playing dumb, was he?

But if there was one thing Wylla certainly remembered about Taikon, it was his golden eyes meeting hers in the middle of a meeting where all her subordinates could see his disrespect, and this wolf’s eyes were brown.

Wylla wasn’t the sort of wolf who could easily save face by apologizing and admitting her mistakes. It was like pulling teeth just to say she was wrong about something. But her expression froze as it dawned on her that this was not Taikon, but in fact, a stranger with an uncanny likeness. Now that she looked at him more closely, Mateo was more ginger where Taikon had been more blonde …

No apologies were forthcoming, but the shrewd Vierte took a step back and sniffed haughtily. You look exactly like some son of a bitch I once knew, she accused, as though to somehow make this Mateo’s fault.