Jade Fern Grove he's got looks that books take pages to tell

It was made known that he wasn’t alone with his lack of familiarity, which he’d felt relieved to hear. It made him wonder, though, of the reason for why the idea had formed. If Sriracha himself wasn’t used to bunking with any groups other than his family, then how and why had he thought that doing so would be a good idea? Perhaps it was because his family was so large, or maybe it was something else entirely. Curious, but not nosy, he’d abandoned the thought of asking however many questions that he’d come up with. The answers didn’t really matter anyways, if he were to be honest with himself. It didn’t matter why the masked wolf wanted them to all sleep together, just that he did. It was as simple as that, he’d told himself, which had assisted with his efforts to drop the subject and forget about his unspoken inquiries.

Xan was taken aback when his friend-in-the-making continued to speak. He couldn’t recall a time during which he’d been called good, for always had he be the exact opposite. Trouble followed him wherever he went, plus he’d practically been born a creator of it. If something was going well, he had a way of messing it all up, sometimes without having even realized what he’d done wrong. “I’ll try to like it,” was his response, words genuine. The Inuit had even found himself wanting to like it, simply because that would mean he’d be closer to Sriracha and Ocra; the former had just shared that he liked the yearling, but the latter’s opinion was still a mystery. It was absentmindedly that he’d then found himself asking, “What about Ocracoke?” There was a pause, and then he’d shaken his head before clarifying what he’d meant. “Does she like me?” They’d met under awful circumstances, he knew, but still couldn’t help but wonder. Normally, he couldn’t care less about what others thought of him, but now it was different. He needed to know that he could trust at least those two, as well as wanted to be sure that neither hated him for what he’d previously done.

When the authenticity of his name was brought into question, Xan had, surprisingly, not been offended. “Yes and no,” answered the albino, then wasted no time with explaining what he’d meant. “My full name is Alexander Apaata, but I’m usually just called Xan.” There were only a few wolves that could get away with calling him Alexander, and they were, for the most part, his family by blood. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the idea of being called by anything other than his nickname by the other, and so he'd kept quiet about it for the time being. And then when he'd started to move again, the boy followed, hoping to remember where the den was located in case he might end up needing it someday.