Moonspear fulthark

He was propped awkwardly between two ferns. The coarse frond curled against his haunch, tucked in to his yellow belly where it tugged at the hairs there, leaving pollen behind. He did not see this. Any discomfort he felt from the way he was leaning against his tailbone was forgotten moments after it arrived; but he did eventually roll forwards and take up a lazy stance on his paws again. His expression was blank, or sad, depending on your point of view.

When he thought he heard something moving among the trees, he raised his head minutely and his ears fanned everywhere. Just as the moment began to slip from her cognizance the stranger emerged. They were heavy-set, with a lustrous coat Larus might've compared to bronze if he could, highlighted with burnished honey tones. What really caught his attention was the stranger's posture, the look on their face — then their voice.

Commanding. Imperious. Suspicious.

It wasn't a voice he knew, but, he recalled the language somehow. His head bowed though, before his tongue could try to concoct a response. The man's bushy tail, yellowed like his belly, went from stiff-against-leg to curled-against-belly immediately, and any confidence he might've carried while standing melted from his shoulders. He was a big wolf, Larus — once a chubby child, now a middling adult with a ranger's finesse, but tall — and he crescented his body as a repentant teenager might, if caught doing something against the rules.

Even he didn't know why he reacted this way. Only that the stranger's intimidating glare and deep voice required it of him. He wanted to be smaller, smaller, smaller. Not a threat, his body conveyed; his eyes darted from the ferns to the man's glowering eyes, and down again. Meekly, Larus offers a messy response: L-Lost, a.. alone.

Was that right? He grasped for those sounds as they left his lips, wishing he could hold on to them and make sense of them. When he opened his mouth again the words flowed, but it felt like someone else was speaking through him; the dissonance grew. Is this... home?