Dragoncrest Cliffs soldier, take your time

Boy, he was setting himself up for a world of future confusion. The wolves of Drageda spoke a different language than the one Ephraim was born and briefly raised with, and he was struggling to pick up snatches of that. They were usually good about talking to him in a common tongue, and the pups seemed to speak it pretty regularly anyway, but sometimes he would listen to a conversation and have no idea what was actually being said. It didn't make him feel different, though. He was too young for such a distinction.

Étoille, too, spoke a different language. Ephraim couldn't tell the difference between the pack's Trigedasleng and his guardian's French, so he assumed wrongly that it was the same language. This set-up could only result in hilarity in the future, but for now, he smiled and attempted to repeat it back without knowing at all what it meant: "Bun sure." Terrible, truly awful, but he tried.

"Good!" he chirped in response, hopping to his feet and spending a moment greeting the man with a wagging tail and a butt of his head against the broad chest. He didn't know it, but he was growing very quickly indeed and was already larger than when Étoille had first found him. "Whatcha doin' today? 'Splorin'?"