Word Count: 508
Unspecified random area sounds good to me! I am still getting used to the whole subterritories within main pack territories thing. And aw, thanks! I like your writing more, though. Just with the way you write, I can picture Saul and see him as that awesome uncle that everyone wishes they had. Melee's a lucky lil niecey!
Melee was the opposite of her uncle in his cleanliness. Well... maybe not the opposite, for it wasn't as if she relished in rolling around in dead things. Certainly she was not fastidious about her appearance, though, and cared little if her coat was mussed. In fact, she rather liked when her mane stuck out at odd angles. That was beautiful, to her. Though others seemed to see order and symmetry as the preferred beauty, she enjoyed things that stood out as different. Maybe it was because she had been born and raised different from the start. Most wolves didn't get abandoned at birth, nor were most wolves born with her deformity. In fact, she had never seen another with such a twisted appendage except herself. Wretch had limbs broken, but her adoptive cousin would heal to appear normal again. Melee could never heal her forepaw into appearing normal. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, though. There was beauty even in her deformity. Not everyone had the eyes to see it, but she did.
As she pondered beauty and her own mismatch with the world's standards, she still felt at peace. Silently appreciating what she had. Saul helped her with that, too, because he reminded her of how lucky she was. Even though her parents had left her at birth, she had a great adoptive family. A family that she doubt could have been matched by one with a heart so cold that they could abandon their own young. Undoubtedly, she had been blessed to have such an uncle and to feel a part of the Stormbringers. Though her last name might be Soul, she had little connection with her blood relatives. Though she was curious about her origins, it wasn't because she wanted to rejoin the Soul family that had abandoned her. She just wanted to know where she came from. Sometimes she wondered why she was Melee Soul and not Melee Stormbringer in the first place. It mattered little, though. In the end it was just a name. Nothing could change the amaranthine bonds she had with them.
At Saul's words, her introspective thinking turned back to the present and she snorted. Large? Her? Well that was just silly. Then again, so was this whole conversation so far. "I am pretty sure I was here first. Yes, I must have been, since you weren't here until you nearly fell on me!" she jested, cheekily sticking out her tongue at her elder. "And who you calling large? Just because you couldn't beat me in a wrestling match anymore doesn't mean I'm large. It's only because I am stronger than the elderly." it was a joke, but also a playful challenge. When was the last time that they had been able to just cut loose and romp? Probably a while, given the move, the marriage, and all of that business. Such thoughts were far from Melee's mind right now, though; she was soaking in Saul's presence like she had the rain, and it was making her happy.