Wheeling Gull Isle bats full of shame

The stranger returned his greeting, the single word edged with the same austerity as Caracal’s own. Stiff-legged, he sloshed across the submerged sandbar, wondering what this wolf could possibly want. Had they smelled Heda on the sea breeze? The thought made the fur along his spine stand up in a rigid bohawk.

But as Caracal closed the distance, two things hit him in quick succession: this wolf was female and she was familiar. He stopped a few yards away, eyes still narrowed as he tried to place her. A voice far back in his memories whispered, “What do you do in this shithole?”

Now his eyes flung wide as he favored her with the sighted one. Despite the memory, he couldn’t quite recall her name. But a few more snatches of that conversation floated back to him across the vast expanses of space and time.

Hey! he repeated his earlier greeting, although it was much warmer now. Do you still pick fights with—what was it?—badgers? No, wait! Wolverines!