Hushed Willows WindChill

The coywolf's nose twitched at the word deer — he lifted his head a little higher to catch a better scent — but the wind was not quite in their favor today. Instead, he was obliged to follow his packmate down a trail that Dusty Rose did not feel much need to pay attention to — he had quick legs for running and a long nose for sniffing, but he was getting real tired of staring around at all this white.

He daydreamed instead.

"Hm?" he said when he was asked a question, his springy legs sending him a few inches in the air when he forced himself back to alertness. "Oh — It's Dusty Rose. Dusty Rose des Peres, if you really wanna know. What's yours?"

He cast another admiring glance at the wolf's ear-thingies, and then quickly skated his gaze elsewhere.

"What kinda deer do you have here?" he asked, his tail spinning in subconscious anxiety. How was he going to keep himself from staring??? Surely the man would be used to it, but that didn't mean Dusty Rose wanted to be caught out. "'Cause I think you'n'me could take down a whitetail, no problem, but if you've got mule deer out here we might need one more. I don't weigh so much as I look."

Not that he was tiny or anything — but he didn't have the build of a full-blooded wolf, even if he had more than enough fur to make it look like it.

In the wintertime, anyway.