The Tangle but if this changed your life did you have one before

eske returns to the tangle, slipping out of drageda's borders once she wrapped up her patrol in the hopes of spotting the dragon-thing again. she wants answers for the strange thing wrapped around her neck. she isn't sure that she's going to find them — she doesn't even know what it is and though her pack mates have attempted to chew it off it was all to no avail. she has almost gotten used to it. somedays, she doesn't even feel it anymore except for when she moves her head to either side and feels it press against her flesh through her thick, chocolate brown pelage. her steps are slow and cautious, her ears alert atop her skull as her gaze flicks to and fro, taking in the surroundings and looking for any sign of the giant bird/dragon thing she'd seen before she'd fallen asleep and awoke with the collar 'round her throat.

to her dismay she hears and sees nothing out of the ordinary. eventually, she is lured in a direction by the sound of ripping flesh and upon the winds beneath the pungent scent of blood she detects coywolf and wolf. it is in a neighboring territory and thus she feels within her jurisdiction to sate her curiosity investigate. she does not conceal her steps upon her approach — the last thing she wants to do is startle the stranger and she's never been one for hiding in the shadows, anyway.

eske shrugs through gnarled underbrush, wincing slightly as a crooked branch snags a small tuft of fur from her shoulder. the scene unfolds before her eyes: a wolf, large, male with a monochrome pelage with varying shades and what she thinks is feathers in his fur. would eske have been the vain type she might've been jealous about his patterning. her coat was rather dull in comparison. to her great perplexity, he draws her eye. even as he dines on a coywolf all she can think is that she finds him aesthetically pleasing. 'strange', she thinks; because he's not her type at all. her gaze flickers down to the coywolf's corpse after she gives a soft chuff to announce her presence and then flickers up to the crow perched upon the wolf's shoulder, studying the bird for a moment before her gaze comes to rest on the cannibalistic stranger.