Silent paws wandered with no real direction along the frosting earth. It was not yet winter, and while the sun still shone brightly along the edging horizon, it was the autumnal shift in the breeze that reminded her that winter was near. Crisp, the air blew between strands of darkened fur as she pressed forward, a gaze of hazel edging toward the incoming silhouettes that lingered on the lakefront.

Although a relatively long-term member of Elysium, Sable had found herself reluctant to speak with much of anyone. Rather, her time consisted of blending into the shadows of the evening and doing her own due diligence along Elysium’s borders. It was the least she could do, she surmised.

Still, she felt like a fish out of water, as though the wolves that lingered in this beautiful mountain were just not the wolves for her. An itching feeling often crept up her spine in the moments of her solitude, a voice that reminded her that they were too good for her company. Souls, as her tiny voice had told her, that Sable would ruin the longer she stayed.

And yet, still, she had not left.

As her paws finally cut the distance, facing a silver boy—lanky and scrawny and building some stone contraption— Sable flashed him a disinterested look. Someone was always doing something weird along this lake bed, and Sable had learned it was better not to ask.

However, the sight of another—large and built like a rock—caught most of her attention immediately. He did not smell of Elysium as many others did, and he appeared soaking wet. A brow rose in quiet suspicion, and a quiet, mysterious smile spread about her lips with ease. She twisted an ear toward the other’s words—no doubt just as curious about this stranger’s entrance as she—as her paws would move to prod the stranger at his side.

Hey, she hissed at him as her paws poked and prodded at his flank again. You alive?