Black Morass frostbite

The stranger responded in kind. Ramsay's tail stirred, but his expression was unchanging apart from a faint glimmer in his indigo gaze, something more akin to amusement than joy. The older wolf was unsure. The older wolf was afraid of him, he imagined, and that made his teeth peek out between his lips in an unnerving little smile. Unsettling mannerism aside, he was but a dwarf, and was harmless enough.

Cicero and the stranger spoke, and Ramsay zoned out, thinking instead of the hawk and the wolf with the chain who had witnessed him. These thoughts had lingered in his brain since the incident, but were tempered by other interests, like their actual journey and search for Cicero's mentor. Only when Delight mentioned the other son did Ramsay's ears perk and his focus sharpened. He turned a quick little quarter circle and issued two short barks, a call for Euron, and he felt a sharp pang in his chest when he remembered that Maegi wasn't with them.

With that pang of emotion came a surge of the same base animal instinct that had driven him to clutch at the hawk to begin with, and he unconsciously flexed the muscles in his thin stomach.