Northstar Vale tea leaves

Dusty Rose watched her. She was pretty to him in a way that was different that most. Provocative, though he was at loath to admit to such a thing. Even Reverie had seemed to him like a thing made of amber before she'd been a living woman. It disturbed him, but for a moment he imagined a life in the desert, another coywolf at his side.

The image left him uneasy, and it was an uneasy step that he took back.

Whatever kinship he felt toward her, she was not his One. She was other, and ultimately, she was nothing to him. This was the way of his people; he assumed that it was the way of hers.

"Good luck," he told her, his voice gone remote. He looked at her strangely before he said it once more with feeling: "Good luck. Keep your paws quick out there."

But then he had nothing more to say — and a woman to be getting back to.