Wrong Foot Forward

The woman reacted the way he anticipated, as any wolf would when affronted by teeth; she let out a sound of surprise, and then turned to bare her teeth towards him. The movement of her body was slow and staggering in it's simplicity; easy to watch and understand. Njal administered a second nip to her hindquarters as he stepped around her, agile thanks to his diminished size. Having been alone for so long, he was made in to a toned and rigid animal - aptly designed for quick travel, despite the square, stout profile. Experience told him how to move. It was the lack of such experience that made the stranger slow and cumbersome; perhaps she should have stayed on her mountain, and not tried to sneak across lands that did not belong to her.

Njal snorted at this thought, which came out of him with a note of amusement. Her bared teeth did not frighten him. She was large, yes, but not trained in the same way that he was. The Russian dove in with his snout and nudged her, hard, against the curve of her hip — expecting her to turn and defend that side which he so laboriously targeted. If she did that, he would move with her. A silver shadow. This behaviour was oddly familiar to Njal, but he was too caught up in the little spat to notice the similarities between these moments, and his beloved Kindred.