Qeya River jus in the wada

A stranger was near, but Sere was distracted - in part by her exhaustion after climbing the mountain, and in part because she was greedily slurping up the water. When his voice drifted over from the adjacent bank, she did not stop to look around, thinking it was merely another wolf of drageda. When she did raise her head, a thin line of water dripped from her masked chin and she lazily surveyed her surroundings, wondering if the stranger still lingered nearby. That was when Seregryn realized it wasn't one of her aunt's followers that spoke - it was an outsider, someone beyond her pull.

In the past few days, Seregryn had learned a limited amount about the pack. She knew not to cross the river or go too deeply south, but she was still a child. An impetuous child at that. So, having realized the tawny male was completely separate from herself and all that she knew, he now represented something foreign in her mind. The girl raised up to her full height (which wasn't much) and picked her way along the riverbank until she found a patch of shallows, and began to cross. The stones were slick with moss in some places, but otherwise it was an easy trek; her feathered extremities became slick as well, dampened to her reedy figure, until she emerged on the other side - his side - without so much as a care to her own safety.

She was still many wolf-lengths from him, and the shallows would be easy to cross in reverse if he posed a problem - but the girl was curious, and there was nobody around who could stop her. With a small shake she rid her belly of some water, and then appeared to reach with her snout towards him, sniffing at the air, wonderment filling her sharp features.