Northstar Vale A non-fiction fantasy

He greeted her languidly, and she watched him with eyes only slightly more gold than they were solicitous. The hybrid  came nearer, his vulpine gait easy and strong. The docile Ridge wolf remained relatively motionless, the slow sway of her tail betraying a welcome she could not speak. She didn't like to be alone.

As the outsider came to a tall rest at her side, his scent overwhelmed her, and the sheltered creature's mind visited places she had never been and could not properly imagine. Stories played in her head, stories her Great-Grandfather had told her of places far beyond the sea. He smelled of these places she suspected, and it was of so many things to wonder at that young, naive Diane was too stunned at first to say anything at all.

Her gaze drifted outward, unable to identify with what he described as "tore up". She blinked slowly, sighing. Something had lay ruin here, but the defaced winterwood was wonderful to her still—and she found it pleasantly stupefying how life still wandered these parts, such as themselves. "I don't think it's tore up at all," she said openly, a sharp ring of true innocence to her tone. "And we're not alone," she added, half-whispering as the cold wind died down.

"I've been following a herd that traveled through here earlier," Diane said, something in her voice hopeful and clearly leading. "Would you.. would you maybe, like to come with me?"