Hushed Willows I do taxidermy.

It happened completely by accident, really. It wasn't like he had intended to bypass the willows; he hadn't gone out of his way to find the scents of the other wolves, and he hadn't been lured closer by the chance to meet them — no, not Hollis! Never.

It was just... The trees, they whispered. Not to him, obviously, he couldn't understand them in the slightest. But he heard the whispers of their long, sinouous branches. He watched them. He listened. There was something acutely melancholic in the way they danced, and the sound of the wind drifting between them. Something so sorrowful, yet so appealing.

And then he smelled it — the stench of piss, the mark of the wolf. It ruined a perfectly good evening stroll to be completely honest. As soon as he found that smell he dropped his rear with a plop, his nose wrinkling in a flehmen response (and, okay, he was more than a little horrified by the discovery) but he didn't leave.

It was winter. He was lucky to have gotten this far without starving to death. If this was the secret the willows were keeping, perhaps he didn't need to understand them — so his thoughts went, as he tipped back his head and droned an ugly note through the trees.