'Is your soul also touched with loss?'

She could almost laugh. Loss. That was one way to put it. Loss of one thing, yet abruptly and unapologetically replaced by another. She allowed his question to drift into the night air, unbidden.

A hushed murmur emerged from his direction, though it was too soft, too indistinct for her to ascertain.

'My name is Amaris ... Amaris Callosum, it is a pleasure to meet you, Takala.'

Amaris. The name settled uneasily on her tongue, unfamiliar but not unwelcome. The she-wolf tested it once, quietly, as though committing it to memory would anchor her to something solid, something real. For recollection later, perhaps.

The she-wolf stepped forward, closing the distance by half a breath. And then she saw him.

A sharp inhale, then stillness.

He was gray, like her. Tall.

Like the Albans.

For a moment, she forgot herself. A forgotten warmth stirred in her chest, sudden and unwieldy. Her mind raced, trying to stitch familiarity into a name she did not recognize. Callosum? She had never heard of it. But—

'Are you lost?'

"Are you... like me?" Her voice was steady, but the breath behind it wavered. Caution abandoned her as the lavender-hued female stepped closer, searching his face, his pelt, drinking in every detail with a hunger she could not restrain. She was never careless, never reckless—but her discipline cracked at the seams beneath the weight of possibility. Social etiquette be damned, she just had to get a better look.

"Forgive me," she murmured, but she did not stop. Her eyes darted across his features, cataloging each shade, each contour. "I'm looking for my family. The Albans. You look like us,"

The lilt in her voice became hopeful and warm, and her moon-hued eyes sparkled in merriment.
"Is that where you're from, too?"