Phoenix Maplewood i'mma turn it on with a bang

The other's unease alone prompted Saena to lay back her ears and ease off. It wasn't like her to be so harsh upon approach, but lately she felt oddly restless. She had no idea it was primarily the season and attributed it to the itching of her skin and the stinging of her wounds. That was enough to drive anyone mad. Maybe that's what was happening. She was going nuts. Pretty soon her grip on sanity would slip and she'd start snapping like a rabid dog at anything that moved too quickly.

Or not. She snapped to attention when the foreign wolf, who smelled nothing much like the taiga and very much like "outside", introduced herself. Her ears flickered uncertainly between stiff and tall and relaxed drooping, and finally settled somewhere in-between. Not too relaxed but not overbearing either. Not like that was easy to be when she had no tail to arc. "Blackthorn," she repeated, feeling suddenly like she should know that name, but having absolutely no idea where the familiarity came from. Unbeknownst to Saena, she'd met two Blackthorns in her lifetime. One of them she'd happily kill on sight for her allegiance to the wrong wolves. The other was long, long gone.

The third was right in front of her, though, and seemed ready to move on at a single word. But Saena shook her head no and seated herself with an audible whine and a wince from her wounds, lifted a leg to scratch at the side of her neck, and said, "it's fine. You're not trespassing. You're close, but you're not in the red." Maybe by winter she wouldn't be so tolerant of another wolf's nearness but Saena still retained some of her openness. "You don't smell like the wolves around here," she pointed out, trailing off vaguely and leaving room for Tail to pick up the conversation or leave it if she wanted to.