Mudminnow River Made plans with me and all your friends, I'm late again, I hate to keep you waiting

When the sun was just beginning to set fire to the sky, a rawboned golden wolf arrived from the east. Her ribs cut lines plainly through her dull coat and her hip bones were sharp angles set above a limp and threadbare tail. She moved on thin, bony legs down a hill toward a winking river with slick jaws. Turquoise eyes, brilliant in hue but not in expression, were fixed on the water.

Wisteria Frostfur had disappeared mysteriously when she was almost 6 months old and hadn't been seen since. Not by any Teekon natives, anyway. She could no longer remember exactly how it happened. Hunger had long since chased her sensibilities away from her and she knew only that she got lost one day, couldn't find her way back, and spent most of the winter on her own.

Spring brought better fortune, or at least that's what she told herself every day as she forced herself to walk until she collapsed. That distance was less and less every day. She jogged to the river and dunked her snout down, drinking deeply until the chill of it set into her bones. Then she rose and began to prowl tiredly along the bank, hungry eyes combing for an unsuspecting fish.