And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood

He asked his question. The female spoke once more. He listened carefully, noting the way she shifted her words to accommodate their creed, but indirectly. He shifted on his paws. Her tongue was silver, but perhaps too much so. The way she spun them suggested she might be a stranger fishing for the right combination of words to validate a false claim to the Tartok name. Her words unsettled him. With little ones further up the mountain, he could afford to be picky and he was tempted to turn them away.

It was the male that saved them. He followed with the accurate combination of their words. At this, the breath he'd not realized he'd been holding suddenly left him. He was now free to answer their questions. Though strangers, these wolves were still family. However, since it was the male who replied most directly, it was to him Iqniq spoke next. "The storm flooded the Spine and we were forced to abandoned the territory. We've since relocated here." Sawtooth Spire was a far more fitting a location for them. That storm had been a blessing in disguise.

Their questions were answered. The pair of wolves had found them, just as they'd said they were seeking. Now it was only a questions as to who these two were and why the were looking. He asked as much now as he looked back and forth between them. "Who are the two of you? Why do you seek the wolves formerly of the Spine?"