The auburn stranger seemed stiff at the hybrid’s approach, but such caution was a natural reaction, an intelligent reaction. Vesper took in the signs and offered no hostile signals of her own, contrarily lowering her head a bit and letting her tail sweep languidly across the backs of her hocks. She was not as submissive as a pack animal would be, but she showed she didn’t intend a threat. The somewhat humble display might have clashed with her innate pride, but the coywolf had always been proud of her intelligence and common sense, and looking as little like a threat as possible fell under that category.
Vesper was not aware of the wash of light falling on her body but for the warmth tickling her back. It made her skin shiver with pleasure, and she could feel her mood warm with the sunlight. She did see the quirked brow and sudden interest in the other female but wasn’t quite sure of the motive. After all, she had come across several other hybrids in her time, and other than the prejudiced she-wolf in Ethereal Eclipse, none had particularly focused on her heritage.
The wolf finally greeted her at last, breaking the silence—or what silence remained with the birds invading the air with their choruses. Vesper dipped her head in return, her blue eyes growing interested as the secui lifted a paw to her chest, stating what had to be her name, before it stretched out.
Vesper flashed her teeth in a little smirk. “Vesper,” she stated with the same inflection before her voice grew teasing. “Not much of a lady.”
She had noticed the near-weakness in the other’s voice and understood the reasoning behind it. This woman before her was not entirely used to speaking—which had happened to Vesper in those months she searched for her father, starving of contact with other canines. She’d broken her voice back in during her time with the band of young coyotes, and since then she’d become as talkative as any average canine, but she could understand why the autumn-pelted she-wolf’s voice sounded so disused.
“What is an Exultare?” the coywolf asked, her voice light with curiosity and respect. Not talking much didn’t amount to stupidity—on the contrary, she found fools talked too much—and she could trust that this female was her equal. The word was foreign to her, though coated with the same delicious alien edge that the name X’yrin had. While she could understand the concept of “Nomad,” she was curious about this odd title.
Image courtesy of henrikj@Flickr; table by the Mentors!
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