A few days in, and Yelp was already convinced the world outside his home had been specifically designed to make his life miserable. Back home, the farthest he'd ever wandered was maybe a hill or two beyond the den. Here? He'd been walking until his paws ached, sleeping wherever he happened to collapse, and waking up just to do it all over again. How big was this place? Did it ever end? A wolf wasn't supposed to survive off whatever happened to be lying on the forest floor, right? But that didnt stop him these days. Berries that looked mostly harmless, mushrooms that he was at least 60% sure hadn't poisoned him. Acorns, other random nuts. A flower or two... At one point he'd eaten something he was pretty certain had just been a leaf.

"What's this? Can I eat that? Is that supposed to smell like that? Uh oh, there goes my stomach. Am I gonna die?"

He wasn't...Well, hopefully at least. His stomach certainly acted like it wanted to. He'd been living it up like a damn squirrel with the way he was eating. Nothing of it filled him up. No way hed ever grow biig and strong with such a diet. No way. He needed meat-- real meat, which meant learning how to catch it. Unfortunately, there was a rather significant gap between wanting to hunt and having the faintest clue how hunting actually worked.

At present, Yelp was barely recognizable beneath a thick coat of drying marsh mud, standing in bog water that reached barely halfway above his legs. Burrs clung stubbornly to his fur. Something green had become tangled around one of his ears hours ago, and he'd long since given up trying to pull it free.

His ears swiveled independently, attempting to track the chorus of croaks echoing across the marsh. Ooo right there! His body lowered, muscles tensing in anticipation as he spotted round beady eyes just breaking over the waters surface. He launched, followed by a wild splash.

"MMPH?!"

Instead of frog, his mouth found marsh weeds, mud, twigs. Something stringy that absolutely was not supposed to be in anyone's mouth. A whole full course meal of bog.

Yelp gagged violently, stumbling backward as he spat the entire swamp back into the swamp. In a fit of thoroughly justified frustration, Yelp slapped the surface with one muddy paw.

"GOD DAMN!"

The marsh answered only with ripples. For a long moment he simply stood there, breathing hard, glaring at the water as if it had personally insulted him. Ever since he'd woken up alone in this strange place, it had been one thing after another. Walking, sleeping outside, finding food. Everything was harder than it had any right to be.

...But quitting wasn't really an option anymore.

With a long, tired sigh, Yelp crouched back down into the reeds. It wasn't the first time he'd disturbed the water this badly. Eventually the frogs always came back.

Honestly, they were kind of stupid.

...

A pair of little eyes poked above the surface.

"...Hah."

Then another. And another.

The half smile that began to form on his face slowly deflated as Yelp squinted at the emerging frogs.

If they're dumb enough to keep coming back... What the hell does that make me?

Despite the wet sock humidity that hung solid around the area, Elwha didn’t seem to be making any moves to leave it.

There was a certain appeal to the bog that reminded him a little of his home, the muggy rainforest feel of it, and he found a comfort in the familiarity that he was noticing was hard to leave.

So he’d stayed, if just until he found a reason to move on more than ‘just because’.

Elwha had been practicing his wolf skills — using not his hands but his mouth, those clawed paws. It was getting easier every day, now almost as familiar as his old body, finding ways to use this contortion of limbs that he’d never dreamed of being able to as a human being. Naturally, not having fingers would always be a challenge for him, knowing what it was like to have them, but he was sure that with time it’d become nothing but a fond memory. Maybe…hopefully…

The day before had been a good one, his belly full and the weather great. He’d gone to bed with high spirits after fishing, nestling in the small den a small ways up from the water to keep dry.

He was still deep in sleep when he was jolted awake by loud noises.

”Huh?” Blinking, blearily, his head perked and ears swiveled, listening for anything else.

God damn!

That was a voice. An angry voice.

He immediately shot up and slunk out from his hovel, legs wobbling with the drag of his sleep. Elwha was in anything but the shape for a confrontation, but he was up and at ‘em like it didn’t really matter.

“Alil`a-cha’ (What are you doing?)?” Said with a slow and sleepy cadence, almost slurred. That curious gaze was crusty and still held a blur to it that made it difficult to see who and what he was looking at, but he persisted, took those paws to drag his corpse of a body down to the water’s edge.

Clearing his throat, he’d rumble a groggy, ”Are you okay?” He noticed that the other was knee deep in the water, turned away from him with attentions on…something. Elwha’s brain was struggling to catch on, to wake up — he had been in such a deep sleep that his brain felt like it was weighing him down, made him droopy and slow.

”Do you need help?”

His ears gave a lazy twitch at the sound of movement behind him, though it wasn't until an unfamiliar voice reached him that his attention finally broke away from the frogs.

Ali cha-what now??

He whipped around so quickly that muddy water splashed around his legs, his wide eyes standing out starkly against the thick layer of black sludge coating his face and entire body. Between the mud plastered over him, the marsh vegetation that tangled stubbornly through his fur, and whatever awful smell had settled into his coat by now, he looked less like a wolf and more like a pathetic half-drowned looking bog critter.

He stared at the other male .There was a heavy sort of sluggishness about him, as though he'd only just dragged himself awake after sleeping for days. Yelp's attention lingered for only a moment before his mind caught back up with what had actually been said before. Maybe he misheard. Yelp had never encountered the idea that different wolves might speak different languages. As far as his understanding of the world went words were words. If one came out sounding strange, then clearly something had gone wrong somewhere. Maybe the guy was still half asleep or something. That certainly made the most sense to Yelp.

When the stranger asked if he was alright, however, Yelp suddenly became painfully aware of what the other wolf was actually looking at.

"Uhhhhh......"

His gaze drifted down over himself before sliding back toward the other male again, and the longer he looked, the harder it became to imagine any explanation that didn't make him sound ridiculous.

Well shit.

For some reason, that familiar knot twisted in his chest the moment the offer of help came. This was the third wolf he'd met since waking up in this world, and within seconds he'd managed to introduce himself as some sort of unfortunate, helpless creature. It wasn't even the offered help itself that bothered him. It was what needing it, or appearing as if he needed it, said about him. The last thing he ever wanted was for the very first impression he made out to anyone to be another reminder that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He feared that already happened with Gemeni and Maral, and now after seconds of meeting it might be happening with whoever this guy was right now.

His embarrassment did what it usually did in situations like this. It reached for a joke before anything honest could escape.

"What?" he replied, glancing down at himself as though only just noticing the state he was in. "you don't do mud baths where you're from?" His chest puffed out in theatrics, wearing an expression that suggested this had all been part of an incredibly sophisticated plan that the other didn't seem to understand. "It's not as bad as it looks. You should see my coat after a few-- " A thick glob of marsh sludge chose that exact moment to peel away from his chin before dropping back into the water with a heavy plop.

Yelp's eyes followed it in complete silence.

"...Well," he muttered after a beat, "it's probably not for everyone."