Sunspire Mountains Back in my hometown

Dusty hadn't been a wanderer either, right up until about two months ago. But the bug had bit, and now he was out in the wide world all on his own.

Mostly.

But the coyote that had been doggedly trailing him all this way was currently shaken, and with any luck, would stay that way for a while longer. Dusty felt guilty for dodging him, but he was still determined to make it on his own, and no amount of the flower eater's soulful staring or insistence that his father's heart would be broken could bring him back around.

So, y'know. He was doing his thing. Walking. His black nose was twitching insistently, his satellite dish ears on the swivel with the scent of another wolf on the wind. Dusty's tail was already wagging in preemptive supplication — he wanted to make friends, and if that wasn't what the other wolf wanted, then Dusty wanted to make absolutely certain he'd be run off rather than savaged. He wasn't worth a fight, his body language said.

He came out of the treeline to swing wide around the base of the mountain, and then when he spotted a moving figure, changed course to gravitate toward them. Opposite the usual effect, he seemed to grow smaller as the distance closed between them, until he stood about ten feet away and collapsed entirely, paws planted firmly to keep himself grounded, but showing just enough belly to say, I've already surrendered! Let's skip the fight.

The coywolf saw all this as etiquette, and had high hopes that the other male would be just as amicable. He had ready a wolfish, open-mouthed smile and a frenetically wagging tail — a universal sign of good will, if the other didn't happen to speak the common tongue.

Hi! No pressure to match length. My posts will probably get shorter now that I've got the exposition out of the way, anyway.