Sequoia Coast born into cruelty and crooked form

If she had known, she did not reveal such to him.

That was a disappointment; his excitement faded fully to transition back to his usual mean mug expression, perhaps even souring when she seemed to move along to another topic altogether. Perhaps this meant that the wolf should not have offered what he had, or perhaps these wolves of Rusalka were none too different than the wolves he had grown up with and dispersed from. Secretive, territorial, worried and harrowed into a node of recluse that swallowed them up greedily like a deep, dark well.

At least that was how he vaguely remembered his natal pack.

Though he understood her question, he could not help but stare at her dumbly for a few seconds. Intentional of course, as it was perpetually easier to pretend he didn’t quite understand while he worked out the pros and cons of being conversational and telling, or less chatty and more unfriendly. But this Rusalka intrigued him, and the desire for information overruled any notion he had about either abruptly ending the charade of parlay or obfuscating stupidity.

“Nafn?” he said, though it came out as a question. “This one the Solpallur af Stormskýli. Solpallur, if frú like.” A bit too much teeth came with speaking his name in full, but he did not expect it to have meaning to her. He had learned that the names of the north did not apply to these climes and their meanings were lost, but perhaps that was as they should be. All things were as they should be, at least in the search for their hringja.

“This one wants to know… nafn? Who you?”

His head bobbled to urge her on; he had shared, so should she.