Porcupine Ridge Just a ghost running scared

Surely if he followed it for a while, the vole would show its face in time. Could voles breathe under the snow? Farstep didn't know, but he would've guessed that they couldn't, so this was really just a waiting game until it had to come up for air. But maybe a vole was like those creatures of the sea that could go weeks without breathing, or so he thought. A week was a terribly long time for him to track a vole. This thought made his paws falter, and soon he drew to a halt, discouraged by the thought of the vole persisting beneath the snow for longer than a few minutes.

This was enough time for Anwyl to locate him. Farstep started when the silvery youth seemed to appear before him in a flurry of snow. His usual nervousness began to worm in his stomach until Anwyl's head and tail both went lower than his own, and then the agouti wolf could relax. He didn't have any particular ambitions, but he could smell a male that wasn't sexually mature apart from one that was, and in his eyes, yearlings were still pups. Not wet behind the ears like real pups, but still not mature enough to stand above their sexually mature companions. A prejudiced viewpoint, surely, but the world Farstep came from emphasized age as well as ability to command respect; as a yearling, he had had no right to dominate his elder siblings unless they let him, and so he believed that was true elsewhere, even here.

Anwyl was a smart yearling, though, with no wayward pride or overbearing sense of his own worth. That was good. This was a wolf who would fit seamlessly into the hierarchy and wouldn't rock the boat enough to make the pack chaotic. Oh, every subordinate rocked the boat in their own way, especially when vying for a higher rank, but all were careful not to upset the balance of the pack. A perfect example of a pack wolf was Anwyl. Farstep was pleased with that. He arranged himself into an easy dominance, high head held only a little higher and his tail horizontal and waving fully, a friendly gesture.

To Anwyl's question, which he did not comprehend, Farstep had no verbal response. Instead he stretched out his neck, hoping Anwyl would let him sniff the downy fur on the top of his head and would take the opportunity to smell Farstep in return, so they could become familiar with one another on a more primal level.