Phoenix Maplewood I don't feel connected to all of your lies.

With yesterday’s exchange still fresh in his mind, Cambria found himself moving further afield, purportedly widening his patrol route. His thoughts wandered along with his feet, the yearling pondering how pack life had changed him. Once, he would not have hesitated to help a stranger. Nowadays, it was as though his altruistic nature had withered.

Or maybe you’re just saving it for your pack, he mused under his breath, slowing to a pause near where the grass of the plains gave way to the rocky terrain of the moraine. I’m not sure… he continued talking to himself, only the words drifted into silence as a howl rose into the air.

It wasn’t unusual to overhear howls in this wilderness, though there was something about this one that made his hair raise. The yearling proceeded stiff-legged across the rugged path, mismatched gaze honed on the forest over yonder as the wolf’s voice hit a lachrymose crescendo before falling away into ringing silence.

Cambria halted at the tree line, his earlier thoughts still swirling. Did this caller need help? He sounded distressed but not necessarily urgent. What drove the yearling into the trees was perhaps less an effort to resume his former altruism than a sort of morbid curiosity about who’d made that sound and why.