9/3/2025, 4:50 PM
sorry for slow reply!! back from my trip so i should be on a normal schedule again :-)
yunxu continued staring. he was unsure what he was expecting, as even if she lunged for him he had plenty of space to make a retreat- that she would notice him and take that as a cue to leave with no words needing to be exchanged? that was ridiculous, even for him.
but he continued, for lack of the confidence to do anything else.
the nervousness had mostly dissipated by the time she lunged, with the ease of a practiced angler, and came out with a fish squirming in her jaws. he blinked, impressed despite himself. she wasn't of his blood, and he saw few enough wolves who could fish in a way that didn't look like a child flailing at their first lesson.
nonetheless. she retreated down the rain-slick tree trunk, without falling and sending her catch scattering into the water, and yunxu noted the eye that now lingered pointedly on him. his hackles made a valiant attempt to bristle, thwarted by the rain, before he forced back the instinct. if he thought on it, this could be an opportunity. she might have information the old woman didn't... though from the look of her, and the look she was giving him, she was more like to snap at him than senka had been.
...perhaps less like to treat him as a child, as well.
yunxu waited until she'd slunk her way off the rotting log and set after her at a trot, head down and tail low so as to avoid any... immediate confrontation.
"你好," he tried, once he thought he was near enough to be heard over the pouring rain, and then, more tentatively, "hello?"
english | mandarin