Swiftcurrent Creek Fresh cut grass, one cold beer

She recalled their first meeting, though the details were hazy. She could scarcely recall the colour of fur that the old wolf had possessed. But she did remember with startling clarity Ira's declaration that love was dangerous, because she had found it an intriguing concept at the time and had agreed with it. Never had she expected it to become something he so fervently believed in, nor something that would emotionally harm him this way.

"What makes you think that is true?" she wondered in a tone that was touched with some concern. She couldn't help wondering if somebody had done something to him, threatened him or otherwise made him believe he was a danger to those around him. Not caring about others was a tempting compromise for loving them and putting them in danger, yet it was functionally impossible not to care, as a wolf.

"You have not destroyed me," she suggested suddenly, hoping to bolster him with that knowledge. There was a slightly hidden implication that she cared about him on a more intimate level than just mentor and pupil. She didn't comment on it. "I will visit the mountain in a few days' time, and return in a week," said Jinx, diverting abruptly from the subject, or at least seeming to. "You should stay here, lest Fox grow suspicious of you as well as myself. If you are still certain you are cursed, then I will consult Sos and Atka and see if I can find a way to lift it from you, that you no longer worry if others see something likeable in you."