Lost Creek Hollow The Sharpest Lives

*squeaks this one in, too*

From the get-go, the fact that the wolf was sick did not bode well for him. Mordecai knew all too well how illness could spread, and that firsthand experience was not something he was so keen on repeating any time soon. Still, other than the evident cough and a raw, rough voice he didn't see anything that really suggested how ill he was, or wasn't. Regardless, there was an element of a cold sheen that turned up in his gaze, though perhaps it was mute in comparison to the curiosity that projected from him.

Especially when there were words dropped like I heard. This was something that Mordecai did not dispute, willing to believe that perhaps there were those who had tried to make their way in only to be driven away. Yet it struck him differently, uncomfortably even. This was not a feeling he held onto.

"What makes you think you belong here? You seem like you've had better days," he spoke, still holding his distance. Whatever the yearling had, Mordecai didn't want him to be sharing it. But it was also out of the notion that everything could have been an elaborate charade, and as it were, they deserved to be leery of what they could not control.