Whitefish River Oh, I'm a Maid, and I'm Pure and Fair--I'll Never Dance with a Hairy Bear!

The wolf was nervous. Nynka could see it in the way that the beast halted there, daring to venture no further and even taking a hesitant step back as uncertain expressions flitted across the furry face. The hesitance didn't seem quite so dramatic as Nynka had hoped, nor all that likely to last long... so the weasel seized the advantage of the moment where she could.

Well, what have you to say for yourself, interloper?! she bellowed in her very best giant murderous bear spirit voice imitation... which coming from her tiny lungs was generally not very good, and even with the kind assistance of the big thick yellowed skull with its oversized canines half-buried in the dirt and its arching echo-chamber of an empty braincase arcing a fair distance above her head (relatively speaking) the imitation was... well. Merely passable, probably, at best, to a wolf in a skeptical and overly-inquisitive state of mind in particular. Nynka hoped the atmosphere of the really rather dark and gloomy night with its fitful spatters of hissing and misting rain and chill and unwelcoming temperature might help a weasel out a little, here... pretty pretty please?

No such luck. The stupid wolf just wasn't in the mood to cooperate, it seemed, for despite the atmospheric assistance of this gloomy and forlorn night the canine picked up its courage in its teeth and ventured forth once more before more than a few breaths had passed, cautious and yet interrogatory in her movements. Aw shoot, the jig was up, wasn't it. But Nynka wasn't ready to go down without a fight. How dare you so profane this ground, you insufferable bitc— and then Wraen's paw was scooting right towards her. The skull was big and heavy and had sat there cementing itself into the earth where it lay for quite a long time, with none who had managed... or dared perhaps... to budge its toothy and shining from where it so long lay viciously leering up at them. Nynka had tried, but her legs and body were small and spindly and not in fact at all up to the task which she'd tried to set them. The other wolf who had tried had only jammed the thing in even deeper when her skull had connected with the long-lost bear's. But with the right leverage, it turned out, it... really wasn't very hard to shove the thing aside after all, to roll it straight off Nynka's outraged form even as she puffed up her spine and fur and darted forth in a bouncily hissing offended outrage. How dare, how dare you, you, you... you... Her fury lost its head of steam almost as quickly as it had built; her mottled brown and white fur sleeked itself back down, her back slumped gracefully back down to earth as if it had never left at all, and the ferocious gleam sparking deep within her black eyes winked out as if it had never been, as it dawned on Nynka all of a sudden just why this scent had been bugging her.

Oh, hi, Wraen, she said, in a quite ordinary and conversational tone of voice, just as if she hadn't been ready to threaten her with fire and brimstone and sharp-toothed torments that only the most terrible of wolfish nightmares could begin to conjure. I didn't recognize you there at first. How are you doing? And— an avaricious gleam came into Nynka's beady little eyes. —And you move this large skull around surprisingly well, I see. Much better than the last wolf who came in here and tried, at least, that's for certain! A flash of much brighter whiter teeth in the cavern's growing gloom, as Nynka grinned fiercely up at Wraen in perfect amused friendliness and even somewhat proprietary pride—apparently the little weasel was convinced she'd delivered a pretty awesome compliment to her most favoritest wolf in the whole wide world, here, and fully expected the canine would feel exactly the same. Who didn't spend their days craving lackadaisical and self-centered weaselish approbations, after all, amirait?