Swiftcurrent Creek Indigo

His words caught her off guard. She had expected him to advance, as she would have expected from a desert-bred wolf who would see the class disparity and choose to exploit it. She may not have even fought it, it was simply the way things were.

But all the latent power of him- it was used only to find his own footing.

He does not move with unearthly desert grace, but strong and stoic, like the rapids of his river. Tension in her shoulder wanes, her neck softens. Within her chest blooms a modest amount of trust, and for the first time she is attuned to the nameless man not as a consequence of her season, but with a sense of something genuine.

Slipping from the creek, the coywolf pads her paws upon a velvety growth of moss before lowering her hips into a seat. Closer, now- close enough to see that his mind is working behind those leonine eyes, and she has the distinct feeling of being studied. She offers him the same look right back- brows gentle, lips curved, a pooling curiosity flaring through the blue dusk amid them.

“Eset,” her eyes skip between his, “what is your name?”