Hushed Willows i tried to bury the moon

@Okeanos

Qilaq has been enjoying the time she gets to spend alone. She even enjoys @Seabreeze’s visits (mostly because they offer the occasional herb, sometimes there is something to eat). The other wolf she met hadn’t even been that bad, but she’d prefer not to do it again. If she never saw another wolf again, she’s sure she’ll be okay. Her time of isolation will eventually come to a halt and she’ll have to face the wolves that have indirectly been part of her healing. That’s enough a reason to want to meet them, right?
 
Maybe. Maybe. If her heart didn’t speed up at the thought every time, today might be the day. Instead, she finds a spot from beneath the willow out in the open. The morning sun is warm against her fur, combating the biting cold the change of seasons has started to bring. Snow has started to accumulate in some places but her fur has hardly grown back. Some patches are still bare, likely to stay that way, and soft, thin fuzz that has collected in most places.
 
A quick gust of wind takes the clearing by surprise, throwing mist from the waterfall, and causing her to jolt awake and quickly blink the sleep from her eyes.

cautiously he begins to set down roots in the willows. it doesn't seem like they're gonna move again, and while he doesn't fully trust it, he's adaptable -- it's easy enough to start to settle down. okeanos still worries after @Ibis, spending most of his time with her, and still tries to follow mali and brilliance around when they'll let him. at night he watches the stars and tries to remember what he's been told, making out shapes and patterns where he can. 

today he is not with ibis or with the other puppies, distracted, as it were, by a big stick he's discovered. the willows are kind of pretty and filled with lots of cool stuff, which takes away some of the sting of moving in the first place, but oke still misses the gelman he lost in the first move. nothing has the same mouthfeel! this stick is pretty okay though, nice and knobby and fits firmly in his small mouth. he's dragging it across the dirt when he spots a new adult, someone he's never met before and doesn't smell familiar. oh! oh! what should he do? he doesn't trust adults like he used to but he's still gotta be polite -- dragging his stick with him, oke marches up to her and sits down. "hello," he says, voice a polite chirp, "i'm oke-anos, who's you?"

Qilaq takes a few seconds to adjust to the world of the living, shifting a little and sitting up. She’s gotten a little comfortable within the willows. Seabreeze is the only wolf that consistently visits her, maybe Lily a time or two, but she enjoys the time she gets to herself. When she sees another approach from the distance, she jerks again and scrambles her legs a little (though she struggles to actually do anything) by the time the other wolf comes up and sits nearby.
 
She shrinks back a little, ears flattened against her head, and she flinches when he talks, the stick in his mouth moving at the same time and she tries to lean back out of the way of being hit by it.

the woman doesn't respond to him at all, besides looking kind of scared of his stick. oh! sheepishly he lays it down at his feet, his tail thumping against the ground in a friendly way. "sorry!" he says, tilting his head at her curiously. she doesn't seem to be about to respond to him otherwise, and he wonders if she'd not heard him, or if he'd been very muffled by the stick after all, repeating shyly: "um, i said m'names oke-anos, who're you?"

He lays the stick down gently, stiffening when he pops back up and apologizes. She can see the softness of boyhood in his features and voice despite being significantly larger than her. Seabreeze and Lily were slow and careful, she is not used to the brunt-ness of a child. She wonders if her own might be this age but she shakes her head, surprised (and now confused) by the thought. “Um, Qi-Qilaq,” she finally says, shuffling back a little more.