Blackwater Islands he died with that dream still alive in his head

no, ingram replies tonelessly, intentionally making it hard to discern how he felt about her joke — a fact that he only grasped when she bust out into laughter. inwardly, ingram was trying to connect the wolf he'd met when the wispmother and listener had been attending to her to the one before him. were they the same? or different?

his tail flicks against his hocks.

what's my deal? the question could've so easily been taken as an insult. ingram tries to puzzle her out, thinking she is too brazen for an acolyte. he preferred the ones that didn't talk ( to him, at least ). or maybe today he just wanted to recede into his shell.

the fact that someone wanted to meet him was a bit baffling to him because, well, his job was to protect them. he was their iron guardian: to be seen but not to be heard. or, rather, this was how he wanted it to be. i am the keeper. he tells her, as if this simple title explains everything; nevermind that it was rather vague in and of itself. but like the others whom had let their titles shroud them as an identity: so, too, did ingram.