Rising Sun Valley Dear Fellow Traveller

Louis knew nothing if not the cold. In his home, summer was brief, and snow dominated all other seasons. You learnt to live with it, or you did not live at all.

So when the scent on the air changed, and the skies greyed, he'd gauged quickly what sort of storm it was liable to be, and made haste for shelter. An old fox hole, long abandoned, presented itself erelong. Deep enough to keep him well insulated.

It would not be like home. He would not have siblings and parents and grandparents to curl up with in the damp warmth of their ancestor's den to feel safety or love. But he would see the other side of the storm in comfort. And he'd honor them by doing so. There was pride in knowing they'd taught him well, and a kind of affirmation, lonely as it might be.

Lonely, or so he'd expected, anyway. 

But a nose and a pair of shuffling feet arrived not terribly long after the blizzard's onset.

At first he thought the den must not have been abandoned by its owner after all -- but a sniff soon told him otherwise. A stranger seeking shelter, like him. A she-wolf.

He waited in the farther reaches of the dim dark until they were more or less inside, and then gave a curious woof -- ears pricked, tail wagging. "Hullo."