Chimera Fields surrounded by debris of the past

he was caught out in the elements again, wandering through the field in a haze of snow and mist. the wind was probably the worst of it, like always, always, and the depth of the snow made travel a living hell. which from what he understood, had definitely frozen over.
he had departed from the plains what seemed like a couple of days ago at best, but time was a really weird construct that did nothing for him. at least he had managed to stay out of harm's way for a bit, however rough around the edges he was, and the solitude had been refreshing.
but he was hungry again, and sore, and cold, and probably a little bit too damp for his liking. maybe he should have just stayed at the plateau, skirting about and hiding out like some poor respresentation of a bandit. but he didn't fancy almost getting stepped on again, nor did he really fancy a whole lot of company.
which was why he had made a lot of haste when he had gone through the weald until his stamina had betrayed him. no, wait—it was totally the snow. the snow had made him weary again and suddenly he really hated being in the field too.
speaking of... it had gotten a lot bleaker the further he had travelled across it. gone were the comfort and potential shelter in the trees and here had come the twisted and mangled landscape that he didn't realize told a horrific story about some storm that had gone through years ago. truth be told, even if the conditions were improved and right in the world, he wouldn't have really noticed it. maybe there would have been some wreckage left still, but the terrain was healed. and also presently buried.
but he felt the shifting ground beneath his feet as he made his way; he knew he was walking along one such path of torn earth and tossed about trees from who knew where. some of those behemoth trunks made little hills, and it was as he crested one such thing that his foot went through the snow and left him sinking, scrambling for solid ground.
a choked out note escaped him in panic.
this did not help him any.

simmik's kidnapping and his father's reappearance were two things that weighed heavily on cam's mind, and the extra strain made him all the more wary. especially of folks who wandered too close, in his view, to neverwinter forest. he saw saints in every shadow, every sudden movement, and he felt ready to strike at a moment's notice—

and he took this threat seriously, too. . .at least until the lithe brown figure on the horizon sank down in an almost comical display of misfortune.

frowning, cam set off upon the snow, eyes narrowed against the wind. hey! he yelled, the more curious side of his nature taking over despite everything else. what's going on over there? he doubted whoever it was could even hear him over this maelstrom.

he realized at some point that he was traveling upward, and then realized further what had happened when one paw plummeted quite suddenly into a snowdrift, nothing solid beneath it. it was in the chasm of white between himself and the nearest point of reference that a considerable dent was left in the snow, and in it, presumably, the stranger.

are you stuck? he asked loudly, lifting his paw, heart pounding with the knowledge that he very well too could get trapped out here if he wasn't careful.

now the one thing in the world that he could count on was to have an audience any time he did something remotely stupid. it literally never failed and if he could have claimed a mastery in it, it would have been getting caught doing stupid shit.
he must have had tunnel vision, he thought for a moment. there was literally no way he could have missed a dark blotch in the haze when the reality of it was that the timing was just purely coincidental and unfortunate for him. he had no more started to find purchase with the stupid placement of his own feet when the voice had reached out to him and in his confusion of it coming out of nowhere, almost slipped comically again.
uh, no, he commented lamely. unless you mean stuck like, completely and utterly disgusted with this weather and the fact that it can't make up its mind. a beat of silence followed his statement as he stared down his company. i'm stuck on that. the ground's just stupid here is all.
nevermind that he shouldn't have been climbing around on debris to begin with, but he had rarely done anything the easy way. the path of least resistance was boring and lakhos was more or less perpetually in a hurry to get wherever he was going, terrain be damned.
not wanting to take a chance of sliding right back into the almost tomb he was to be interred in, lakhos moved to more sturdy ground. less debris-strewn, at least. which only left the new problem ahead of him, though honestly anything and everything was a problem these days.
so... you another one of those saintly sorts going around and digging out the dumbasses outta things in this stuff? there's a lot of those lately. like mister smelly death cave, the stutterbox trying to tell him how to fish at the river... maybe that was it. the others were really a blur at this point, blinking out of existence the way we all clicked out of pop up ads before the advent of adblock.

oh, there he was. cam peered over at the young man, relieved as he finally got onto more solid ground. he let out a quiet snort of laughter at what he said about the weather, twin puffs of fog from his nostrils. god, it was true, wasn't it? when was it ever going to stop snowing?

his amusement faded, however, at the word 'saintly' and the words that followed. i'm no saint, he rejoined sharply, unaware that the double meaning was probably lost on the stranger. just saw you from afar, that's all. wondered if you were hurt.

his brow furrowed. do you have anywhere to take shelter? cam asked. the weather is disgusting, especially out here. he was in no place to offer anyone the comfort of neverwinter forest, especially now, when any unfamiliar face could be an enemy. still, he felt for the lanky creature.

he felt for anyone who found themselves alone, at the mercy of others.

not a saint, and apparently not a fan of being nicknamed either. lakhos registered that with a mental okay then, especially when the wolf went on. not a saint but apparently still a good ol' boy, going around and checking to see if he was hurt. cool. so in other words, he was putting his snout where it probably didn't belong because lakhos felt like good deeds were more often punished than they were rewarded. in his experience, anyway. it may have been simply because of what he was, so it boiled down to the notion of privilege more than anything else.
and that was a bit too complicated for lakhos to grasp still.
i'm always hurt, it's a character flaw, he explained with a halfhearted laugh. and shelter's overrated. what good's this coat if i can't use it, right? sure, he might have had his bouts of being cold and wet and hungry, but that literally applied to any time of the year. winter was just a pain in the ass, but he still held onto the arrogance and folly of being able to endure it.
so if you aren't saintly, then what are you? the last guy i called a good samaritan got all pissy about it—y'all got issues with virtuous titles or something? probably—he hadn't met too many virtuous sorts in his life and honestly so far he was hitting as much as he was missing.

cam didn't do well with sarcasm. he preferred a more direct way of speaking, and this young man's acerbic jokes rubbed him slightly the wrong way. still, he was relieved that there was no grievous injury—or so it seemed—and focused on the questions at hand.

there are wolves around who call themselves saints, cam explained. they're anything but. horrible pack—have you run into any of them? for the stranger's sake, he hoped he hadn't, or wouldn't in the future. not since moonspear had anyone spooked him so badly, and the saints hadn't even left a mark.

not a physical mark, anyway.

he shrugged. i don't really have a title, nor do i want one, he continued, and then watched the other wolf expectantly, waiting for his response.