The Tangle but if this changed your life did you have one before

even if caw were able to understand her language, he would thoroughly ignore it. as it is, it does not even register as warning, as anything but pointless, and his nose presses eagerly against the band, nostrils flaring. it smells naturally very much of wolf, even through the blood painting his muzzle, but underneath there is something stale, faded, and somehow vaguely familiar.
 
caw’s ears flutter, and he presses yet closer, snuffling at the collar while he combs his mind for the memory that will connect it. it is from beyond this place – nearer, he thinks, where he was raised – but while he has not lived that long he has seen and scented many things. he does not so much as notice avis landing once more on his back.
 
the woman’s words, as the first did, go unacknowledged, if understood; what caw is far less pleased with is the way she recoils from him, removing the collar from under his nose.
 
caw does not even bother lifting his head. “no, no,” he insists, drifting closer immediately, paws fumbling in the snowy ground in his haste to replant his muzzle where it has just been. there is already a sticky patch of blood clinging to the band and her otherwise-neat fur. “what is? where from?”