Sun Mote Copse wandering through broken shadows

WC: 591

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Now that she was close enough, Niamh thought herself foolish to have mistaken the male for her brother. Where Ambrose was almost completely black, save for golden highlights in his mane, this male was clearly more brown with black points. Had her mind been playing a trick on her, or had it simply been the distance between them that had made him look like Ambrose? From far enough away, of course, it would have been easy to mistake one dark wolf for another, and their stature wasn’t too dissimilar. She had truly believed for several moments that she had found her brother, even though he was moving along too well for a wolf who would have been attacked by a cougar only about a week or so ago. Her mind had wanted her not only to see her brother, but to see him well and capable of moving about with ease. It would have been too easy, too good for her to have found him in a condition as well and capable as the male before her.

He tilted his head questioningly, and she shook hers. ”My brother.” She supplied. Perhaps even that was more information than she needed to supply for a stranger, but then again, this fellow could also assist her in her search, knowing that somewhere there was a wolf who looked like him who was missing. ”But his eyes are blue….And he’s darker,” She explained, pointing out the differences between the two of them. Age-wise...Well, Niamh couldn’t guess age well at all. If a wolf was a pup, they were a pup and if they were an adult, they were all grouped into the same age category. ”His name is Ambrose, and he was attacked by a cougar about a week ago, West of here,” She said, slinging her muzzle in the direction, as though to ward the stranger away from that path, if he were to choose to go in that direction. ”He just...Disappeared.” She supplied, though she specifics were a lot more complicated than she let on. There had been blood and fur, but the conflict had happened one day, and it had been several days before Quixote had even happened upon the scene of the crime.

She wasn’t sure if he appreciated the information, or if he might think she was over-sharing simply because she was still emotional over the entire event; she did her best to remain stoic, but regret showed on her features and in her words. If only she’d kept a closer eye on him, and if only the pack hadn’t been so damn focused on finding Ceara...Ambrose might have had someone with him. Or he might not have been out on his own at all..In all likelihood, he’d been out searching for Ceara too, leaving him vulnerable to the attack. Whatever the cause, it left Niamh feeling sore and hurt, full of wishing that things had been different. The quiet stranger before her had simply wandered into a version of Niamh that didn’t know exactly how to process what she was going through, but even just saying those words out loud seemed to help a bit.

Realizing that maybe he hadn’t wanted to know any information at all- and that she might have simply assumed he wanted to know who she was looking for because she wanted him to be curious, she shook her head. ”Sorry. Probably too much information. My bad.” She apologized softly.

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