Noctisardor Bypass life is about creating yourself.

“New friends? You’re about a two day’s journey North of that. There are three packs in the southern valley, though none this far. Afraid the only wolf you’ll find up here is me.” And she was leading him further Northeast by design.

Her steps with him are bright but her mind is entirely elsewhere, pervaded with thoughts that they might touch and how tall he is beside her flank. There is a danger in this game she plays, but maybe that is in part why she likes it.

“You are not from here then? I assumed you were native to the valley,” She asks, her questions twofold. That she might satisfy her curiosities about the dark man, and at the same time provide a little distraction. Maybe then he will not question why she is leading him through wildland on footpaths overgrown with nettles that seize at strands of their fur and roots that threaten to trip them up. To the innermost depths of the willowed wood.

“Um,” she draws, conjuring a sensible answer to his innocent question while ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. “Camping.” Camping?

It was truthful, at least.