The Tangle Where we drift and call it dreaming

Ephraim grimaced. He hadn't wanted anyone to know he was bothered by a little bit of ice on the ground. What kind of man balked at their feet being cold? Don't tell anyone, he pleaded in a voice that cracked at the end, please? He needed to pretend to be strong. He was a warrior of Drageda now, not the weak little coywolf he might have been if Etoille hadn't found him in the storm. No one was going to take him seriously if Blixen told them how she'd seen him prancing around like a little sissy. No one could know. No one.

He took a moment to consider her words while consciously attempting to master his sensitivity to the cold, then rolled his shoulders in a shrug. I don't remember a bear— he'd suppressed that terrifying memory —maybe it was somewhere else then. It seemed so familiar. Whose arms had circled him when he was just a little cub peering into the dancing blue light of a bioluminescent pool, then? One of his parents maybe but he couldn't summon either of their faces to his mind's eye.

Oh well. They were long gone now, no sense dwelling. I don't know who I take after, he said with a renewed frown. Anyone who knew his mother might, if they squinted, see the resemblance there and know the answer, but he was at a total loss. He had short, thin fur a bit like Blixen herself and his constitution was best suited for temperate climes. The coarseness of his coat marked him as a wolf of the water, but that was something else he didn't really know about himself. You really think I'll adjust too?

It was of paramount importance that he be able to stride proudly alongside his fellows without wincing when the cold wind shook him or when a little frost on the ground bit at his toes.