Whitefish River a crack in the mirror

Nowhere. Everywhere. seemed like a rather ambiguous place. She'd had almost nothing in the way of backstabbing in her life—her overly dramatic belief that her whole family had abandoned her barely qualified—and so she couldn't quite understand the need for vagueness. Perhaps it was simply something he took pleasure in, or maybe he really didn't know where he came from. That thought was depressing; Saena felt that the Plateau was a big part of her identity, and couldn't imagine being separated from it and unable to recall it.

Skaro was moving quickly forward now, snapping her line of thought with his swift motion. Her hackles prickled instinctively until the moment his nose ducked down, when they flattened back out and she lifted her head just slightly. Few wolves at the Plateau had the good sense to step aside for her ambition, which rose by the day, so she was happy to accept any hint of submission from anyone at this point to feed her confidence.

But then he was skittering backward, commenting on her scent, and she was perplexed. "I'm an Outrider," she explained, "travelling alone is what we do. But I belong to Blacktail Deer Plateau. It's that big ridge." She flung her head in the general direction of home, not even turning to make sure the ridge was visible. "You don't have a pack?"

She didn't get an answer, for Skaro turned skittishly away and began to walk. For all intents and purposes he was fleeing, though it didn't seem like it. She watched him go for a moment, found she was indifferent where normally she'd be irritated, and then went back to loping along the river toward home.