+3 He's in a non-descript area of the woods right now, in his lupus form. Early morning.

It felt strange to be here again. Anatole could recall the landscape in part, but he had begun taking wide and exploratory loops through the territory. They had expanded since he had last lived here, and the dark wolf was pleased with this. His legs were strong from his journey and despite the hardships put on by traveling alone, his weight was still healthy. The dried food offered was enough to fill his belly, though he disliked the coldness of such a thing. Hot flesh, now that was truly a meal.

He had not left his lupus body since arriving. Anatole had known such a thing was peculiar here, as it seemed to be looked down upon. This, he found, was foolishness. They had all once been born in such a fashion, and he had never considered it lesser. The Tribe might have changed this view if not for his mother whisking him far north, to their homeland. Even there, Anatole had found no quarter. Bored with the day-to-day he had gone off looking for something more; a bachelor group of wolves had suited his purpose for a while, but then quarrels began when the idea of leadership arose.

Anatole answered to no man. He was not so daft as to shake the pillar of leadership, and he was more than capable of toeing the line, but deep within him he longed for the absolute freedom of a loner. Such things, though, would not suit him yet. He had to find his aunt, first, and he had been journeying for so long that the idea of rest appealed to him. One would not think it from the way he moved, his feet a constant trot, his body (while massive) streamlined and propelled by hard muscles over the snow-brushed ground.

It was by chance she found him, but she welcomed it. This land was so new to her, and she had barely arrived before she was given the task of leading it. Much time went to purely administrative work, and she had little left to study her surroundings. As a result, she spent much of what time she had available on just looking around. She discovered the fallen oak tree just days back, studying it with fascination and a bit of sadness. What was the history of this place, of the tree? She could never understand how the war had affected this tribe, but she needed to do her best in understanding the status quo, at the very least. This included her surroundings, and it was for that reason she was grateful that she ran into Anatole. Someone who had been born here surely knew the area.

She approached him with confident strides, though the strangeness of hisbehavior during his arrival the night before puzzled her still. It could very well be that it was Claudius, more thna Anatole, who contributed to that, however. Ulilohi was still not certain how to place him. Once within earshot, Ulilohi gave a sound to attract Anatole's attention, waving her hand above her head in greeting. There wasn't much point in doing so, however: it only served to enlargen her further, and she was already dominating over him simply because of their chosen forms. She smiled as she approached, ornate braids rattling with every step she took. "Hey there - did you find a place to stay okay?" Ulilohi naturally assumed Anatole would stay with Claudius, but it was polite small-talk either way.

His relationship with his cousin was one that was based on only a few meetings, and ones that had not been very memorable. The boy had been quiet and often hid behind his mother, who had been strange to him as well. They were different than what he was used to. Behavior with his mother had been easy; there was obedience and respect and he supposed this equaled love, but there had never been any weakness. Even after the accident, his mother had never shown any signs of her pain.

A noise distracted him from his jog, and the dark male slowed to a halt. His stance was wide-legged, strong, as if he expected an attack. This did not change until he spotted the woman; while her size might have been intimidating to many, Anatole’s mother was a behemoth herself. Ulilohi’s size was a welcomed change from the lean and ragged things he had crossed paths with on his way here. None of them had bothered him much, aside from whining for scraps now and again. Anatole was a more-than-capable hunter.

“I did,” he admitted. While he had stayed with his cousin for the first night, living in a dwelling not dug from earth perturbed him. The wolf had taken his mother’s old den (after digging out the dead leaves and bones left by some scavenger) for a home. “The territory grew since I was here last. A lot of things changed.”

I thought Claudius lived in the old Aston den, unless he has recently moved out? I could easily be wrong!

Ulilohi eyed him curiously as she approached him, cutting through a copse of trees laden with the cold of winter.. It was very strange to her that someone would don the four-legged form. Not necessarily because of the old notion of shame and punishment related to it - she knew very well that those values had been dismissed by the tribe a long time ago. No, it was the impracticality of it. Sure, hunting would still be possible, but wasn't it just easier to shoot things from afar with a bow, where a deer's antlers never got close to harming you? Perhaps he liked the thrill of it or something. It was too foreign to her upbringing to understand, but it didn't stop her from being fascinated by it.

She nodded, satisfied and enthusiastic. "Good!" When he made another statement, Ulilohi could only nod in confirmation again. "I've been told that they expanded their borders when the numbers reached a high not many moons ago. Obviously," she said, swinging an arm out as if indicating that her following statement was proved all around them. "—our numbers are not so high anymore. I did not arrive here long ago, and I was, honestly, surprised at the modest headcount." For some reason, she had expected a tribe at the size of at least a fourth of the Great Tribe. What she found was something more like a group of individuals at the size of... well, nothing even remotely comparable to the Great Tribe. How lonely it must have been.