Grouse Thicket I’m a chimpanzee

Maybe in some other time this would have been a fun adventure, but right now the world was pretty metaphorically dark. People were missing. There were wolves he didn't trust somewhere out there not too far away... And then there was the storm. But he was tired of just lurking around his home waiting for someone else to do something. Maybe this outing was foolish. Whatever. It felt better than walking.

But the knowledge that this was potentially dangerous did keep him watchful. Mal wasn't a fighter, he'd rather run. And if Donovan mostly collected burly sorts, well, Mal would probably outpace them anyway. So he watched as he wandered. The pale shadow was still when his eyes glanced past her, but the realization that even now no snow-bound tree would look like that nor would a drift be that tall yet, he looked back and saw her staring at him. Blink. For half a second he might have thought it was some kind of ghost of Simmik (not that it made sense, she was likely held prisoner, not dead), but the wolf wasn't her quite obviously once he got more than a half-hearted glance. But she was watching him and hadn't said anything. So he asked, Who're you? And why hadn't she said anything?