Neverwinter Forest Where all problems seem to disappear

Mal wished he had more specifics to give her, but really, the whole thing had been a tiny bit of actual crowdsourced education and mostly actual experimentation, sometimes to bad results. Um. I think about a week or so from what I've seen? Definitely not a time to go close to the borders or wander away from the pack. If you don't want to risk it, you should probably stay off by yourself for that time -- if you really want to be sure, maybe team up with another woman and you can make sure neither of you do anything stupid when it's your turn? Or something. He was just speculating but that seemed reasonable. The other chick could run interference and probably wouldn't be quite as messed up on the scent as a guy would. He shrugged at that, but was more certain about the next bit, Yeah -- not in heat, not gonna have pups. Zephyr's explanations of it had pretty much confirmed it.

Then Simmik stepped forward to him. He was very tense about the whole subject at hand, and he held that tension as she came up to comfort him -- mostly because he was always surprised when someone actually touched him. You know, just add an extra smidge of anxiety before erasing it in the same breath. But that held up for only a couple of seconds. After that, he let go -- she could probably feel shift from the sudden droop across his shoulders, hear the drawn out sigh, and he leaned forward to sort of return a wolfish hug. For now, peel off one layer of masks -- Mal was mentally exhausted about it, Thanks. I hope I'll figure out what to say -- how to work all this out. When something changes, I'll let you know. A pause, a weak smile that now matched his visible mood, I really do appreciate it.