Silverlight Terrace Then there's me, I'm seventeen

Clods flew away from the paddle of his paws, and from his throat chugged huffs and deep barks as he attempted to spook out his prey. He looked half-mad, surely, with how certain he was that the mouse was still there. Had he stopped a moment and inhaled deeply, he would know the scent wasn't heavy enough anymore, but it wasn't until he'd extricated a fair amount of earth, shoved his muzzle into the ground and snapped up a large piece of dirt that he realized he was wrong.

He withdrew with a sharp whine as the taste of blood touched his tongue. He spat the gobbled dirt out, unearthing an offending pebble lodged into one of the larger fragments, and suddenly the source of the blood—a rudely rammed piece of his gums—was clear. There was no mouse there. The wolf shook his head with a grumble, compulsively licking his lips, and then froze when a glance upward revealed a dark-haired wolf, taller and broader than he, that hadn't been there before.

Farstep stood there a moment, staring down the opposing male, but unlike his encounter with Mees, this time he knew he wasn't going to win or even draw if it came to a showdown. The stranger had the element of surprise and something about him commanded more respect than Mees had. Maybe it was the way he stood, an onlooker with a strangely regal bearing, but Farstep just knew he was inferior. This wasn't the look of a loner with no goals. He hung his tail low, swept the tip back and forth a few times, and began retreating to the west with slow and deliberate sidesteps while his head came down... but when he turned to excuse himself, Farstep was unpleasantly startled by the sight of another dark-haired wolf.

The scent of wolves was stronger here than the coast. Had he gone too far, crossed into a pack's domain? Wrongly assuming that both wolves were affiliated, the drifter sunk his hindquarters toward the earth, curled his tail under, and bared his teeth with ears pulled back in an appeasing wolf-grin that spoke of nothing but fear and his willingness to comply in exchange for his safety.