Kintla Flatlands such deliberate disguises.

The hostility bridled and stowed away, Mordecai felt a small nugget of ease wash over him. He had his own rights to be on guard, having in a sense cornered the younger wolf in the full thicket. But Mordecai had his way of gambling with others, fostering whatever semblance of a positive encounter he could. Not all of them had gone that way, in fact, less than half of them had been that way since he had departed from the Spine and the Wilds altogether. It was winter. They were all on edge, all out for the key elements of survival. Only the winter had been mild, the prey rebounding easily in spite of or in lack of a deadly freeze. So it was deeper than survival, it was instinctual.

"Join the club," he said as the fellow turned away from him, choosing then to persist. They were both vagrants, both reclaimed by the earth to be inherently wild and free. The dispersers from packs no doubt long left behind in the fog. "Are you having that bad of a day that you can't humor an old vagrant with a bit of conversation? May as well wait out the rain." Though it was hardly super dry in the forest either, he noted. But the dampness was considerably less and for that, maybe they could both be thankful.