Firefly Glen Riddles in the Dark

AND HERE U THOUGHT U'D ESCAPED TALOSTHREADS, MUAHAHA
:P  Exit from one, hop right into another...lolyep.

Her belly was hollow and rumbling, but this had become such a frequent state of being that Talos was by now able to almost, but not quite entirely, ignore it. She skirted in and out among the trunks of the gathered trees with much the same intent as Mal: perhaps these tall leafy denizens would make themselves into an impromptu umbrella for any canine visitors? Unfortunately she found herself forced to note as she slogged her way from hugging one trunk to the next, it sure seemed like what water the patchy cover of leaves kept off was plopping itself right down into the  thick patches of tangled undergrowth instead. And even into the sandy soil itself, it seemed. Talos lifted one black paw up with a noisy SLORCH and a nose-wrinkle of disgust, eyeing the muddy brown encrustrations clinging wetly to it in a lumpy rim. Gross. She tried her best to step from one hummocked tree root to another, but this slowed her progress further and only met with mixed results anyhow.

Up ahead, suddenly, a nearby scent that rang a bit of a bell in her mind was almost simultaneously accompanied by her eyes locking onto a vague gray form up ahead. Definitely canine, and probably someone she knew...? She had to squint to resolve the damply crouched creature's indentity with the way it was balling itself up deep in the shadowy recesses of the next forest giant, however, and then it clicked.

Admittedly he had given her the small scar on her nose, but Talos didn't hold a grudge, and in fact founded her spirits and tail both lifting a little as she pegged who it was. This youngster didn't look like he was doing so hot, one had to admit, but he was sure to once again at the very least prove entertaining, if she didn't miss her guess. She took a few long strides closer, the extra-loud squelching her final step produced being blown off totally in favor of prodding verbally at the interesting mostly-still-a-stranger. Hey, she said, side-eying his rather pathetic little huddled form sitting in its futher-bedraggling self-made puddles. Wow. Yer fur's extra-splotchy today, ain't it.  ...Okay, so manybe not the greatest opening line ever devised by wolfkind, true, but hey, it was what had popped immediately into her mind, where it almost demanded voicing.