Blackfeather Woods and when the band plays "hail to the chief"

Fortunately, the male's sour thoughts were soon interrupted by the appearance of the pale woman from the meeting. He thought fleetingly of the woman from his dreams, but she was an angel, not at all like the creature coming toward him now. He did not think the leader grotesque or frightening, but there was a sharpness to her figure that the angel had never possessed, and a haze to her bi-colored eyes that contrasted sharply with the angel's keen stare.

It was this haze that had him stiffening in discomfort, but her voice was as real as anything he encountered these days, and he managed to make himself relax once more.

"I don't believe in luck," he told her, but stopped himself short there. It didn't seem right to tell this scarred and deformed woman that a wolf only got what he earned with his teeth and spirit. " . . . but things have been unusually grim, as of late," he allowed, his voice low and grating as he struggled to inject more life and feeling into it. He was still trying to figure out talking to people again; it was strange to remember times when it'd been as natural as breathing.

"We haven't been introduced," he said after a beat, failing to offer any name for himself.