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For Bogart !

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The snow had finally relented sometime in the small hours, leaving behind a brittle crust that cracked under paw like thin bone. Tugix still slept in the shallow scrape they had claimed as camp—a wind-carved hollow beneath an overhang of frosted rock, his breathing slow and even now, the worst of the fever broken. Sulukinak had lain beside him through the night, body curled against the cold that seeped from stone and fur alike, one ear always turned toward the darkness. She had not slept. Sleep was a luxury the hollow inside her rarely permitted.

The world beyond the overhang was vast and silent.

To the east the ridge climbed steeply into low cloud; to the north the land fell away toward what might have been another lake or a river still locked under ice. She scented the wind once—long, slow—then turned south. There was a faint promise in that direction: thinner snow, perhaps a frozen streambed where small prey might shelter, or at least a place where the ground was not so relentlessly empty.

She moved with the low, economical stride of one who had walked long distances alone. Paws broke crust in measured steps, tail low, ears forward. The scar along her belly tugged with each breath, a dull, familiar ache that no longer surprised her. She did not think of Tugix as she walked—only of the need to return with something, anything, to quiet the hollow in them both.

Bogart's purpose was to track, follow, find.

In his youth, he'd been taught to find humans in the aftermath of avalanches, to weather the indomitable northern winds and never lose a trail, to find the pulse amongst bodies otherwise unmoving. In this regard, it made hunting somewhat manageable for a dog whose nature lent him more toward begging than it did running down a squealing animal of the wilds. A scent caught his nose with a twitch, one he pinned as ungulate before he did canid. His tail lashed a little.

Was he becoming an animal of the wilds now?

How was a decision like that made?

He shook out his fur and lowered his head to the ground and followed the slinking trail.

To be clear, he was no animal of the wilds now—not even by a long shot.

If he was, Bogart would not have made the fatal mistake of alerting all around to his very position as he made twin heavy steps, snow crunching beneath him, a soft yelp escaping his jowls. He blinked and took twin steps backward as if that alone could reverse the damage done. The scent he'd been following was close, very, very close. Did he just lose what could've been a meal?

Well, he thought that until his eyes caught the sight of a living shadow in the distance.

Oh.

Bogart scented the air and let out a despondent sigh, he'd been following her, and now she knew exactly where he was.

The sound had come from ahead—two heavy, unmistakable crunches, followed by a soft, involuntary yelp that carried on the wind like an apology. Not wolf. Not prey scattering. Something larger, clumsier, breathing too loud for this silent plain. The scent she had been trailing sharpened suddenly: warm, oily, almost sweet beneath the chemical tang, layered with sweat and something softer, like damp wool or old caribou hide. It was close. Too close.

The trail she followed—the one that had promised thinner snow and perhaps a streambed—curved now toward the source of the noise. Her ears swiveled forward, pinning the direction: not fleeing, not charging, just... retreating a step or two, as though the maker of the sound had realized its mistake.

She did not move. Neither did it. The wind shifted, carrying more of that strange scent straight to her: no wild musk of tundra, no sharp predator edge. No immediate threat in the posture—no bared teeth, no forward lunge—but the yelp had betrayed position, and now the creature knew she knew. It sighed, a low, despondent sound that carried across the snow, almost human in its resignation.

The choice was his now: flee, approach, or stand frozen like prey that had forgotten how to run.

He didn't know how to run.

It'd been bred out of his kind—his breed—so, so long ago; otherwise how could he be of use if he fled when the circumstances grew uncertain? Run. Run forward. Run unwaveringly. That had been his teaching. That had been his guidance. That had been his instinct now, he had no others to rely on. Not the way a wolf did. This realization alone brought alive a thrum of hesitation that settled and soured in his belly. Bogart knew when he was out of his depth but that meant little when he couldn't avoid it.

Ultimately, there remained only one choice and it demanded to be made.

"You're not exactly what I was lookin' for," he called out, breaking the sharp silence. "Mistook your scent for a deer or somethin'!"

Bogart snorted and, albeit tentatively, began to approach, a jovial wag to his tail as he continued, "Hopin' I ain't botherin' ya' or nothin', miss," he said. "Name's Bogart but you can call me Bo if ya fancy the ring of it."

Sulukinak did not flinch at the voice.

It rolled across the snow like a stone dropped into still water—deep, rough-edged, carrying an accent that bent words in ways she had never heard; motionless as he spoke, she was fixated upon the broad russet shape as it drew close. He was a creature lacking all stealth—the opposite of herself—and while he was a large creature, he was submissive. The low and tentative gesturing of his tail told her as much.

The words themselves were strange. Deer scent. Bothering. Names offered freely, as though they were gifts rather than markers of territory or blood. She tilted her head a fraction, ears forward. The oily-sweet scent, like warm wool, or something freshly burnt, clung to him. Smoke, maybe? It was the only mark of the wilderness she recognized that he carried—the rest, alien.

The hollow inside her stirred again—not with hunger, not with fear, but with the quiet calculation of one who had learned that every new thing carried a cost. The dream still thrummed in her bones.

She exhaled once, a slow plume of steam that drifted toward him.
When she finally answered, her voice was low, rough from disuse, each word shaped like a stone laid on an altar: Not deer. The two words hung between them, flat and final.

The wind briefly filled the silence between them. She rolled his name over in her mind, and while it churned the shadow considered the way he looked, and moved, and failed in the basic act of tracking food. If anything maternal existed within Sulukinak she would remain unaware; however, the scar across her belly seemed to pulse.

You walk loud. Breathe loud. Speak loud. Each observation delivered flat, without mockery—simple fact. You... lost? Like bear, awake in winter. The question hung in the air like the breath that puffed from her lungs, carrying neither warmth or dismissal. She held no pity for this beastly thing—perhaps recognition, as one drifter to another, and nothing more.

Her mind ticks back to Tugix—how he waits, festering, and hungry. This had already taken too much of her focus.

Those of the wilds carried an understanding with each other that he simply didn't; a wordless communication, discreet expression that required no elaboration. Bogart wasn't familiar with such... subtlety as this. It baffled him. He watched, his eyes curious about the impatience within hers.

"Not deer." He echoed, tone warm enough condensation could cling to the words. "Better than a deer, I ain't met many folks out here."

The rules he once abided by were null now, thus it left him wondering, how close was too close?

If she were a dog, whether or not he could approach would've been made clear by now, but presently she just stood there. Stock-still. Watching. Waiting? He slowed his stride once he grew closer. Had those observations been made in mockery or malice, they would've rolled off his back as most things did when they were true. "Guessin' I'm loud enough for the both of us 'cause I sure wouldn't've caught a sound from ya'," and Bogart now learned, the distance between them becoming little at all, that she was a slight thing despite standing taller than most. Did that make him a threat as well? He didn't want to be a threat. "Lost? Oh... In a way I reckon, but not right now! Er, I know what I wanna be doin' at least—huntin'."

There's but a few feet between them when he settled down on his haunches then, and slowly as though his weight could unsteady the earth, he lowered himself to his belly, borderline submissive. He didn't want to be a threat.

"What do I call you, miss?"

Sulukinak, she says, knowing that names held a power of their own, but trusting this child of a man did not hold such a power. Her gaze swept him again: the loose jowls, the dark watchful eyes, the russet fur already collecting snow.
 
I hunt for... friend, she elucidates. Tugix was not friend in the way packs claimed the term—only wounded, dependent, bound to her by necessity and the hollow that ached when he weakened; the ache which she did not understand. Still, the label served. They are sick, and we are hungry.

She shifted again, circling half a step to keep the wind at her shoulder. Her tail remained low, ears forward but not pinned. Her gaze flicked to his broad shoulders, the thick chest that rose and fell with steady breaths. Useful, perhaps. Not subtle, not stealthy, but strong enough to haul kills back to their camp when her own legs tired and the snow deepened. The thought came practical, unemotional—survival did not allow sentiment.

She took one measured step closer—still beyond reach, still coiled—but closing the gap by the width of a single breath.

Bo-gart, she said, using the name he had offered like a tool she had picked up to test its weight. Bo. The shortened version felt even stranger, softer. You hunt with me? If prey runs from you, I will find it first. You carry. We share.

The question hung low, rough-edged, carrying no promise of alliance, only utility. No warmth. No threat. Merely the quiet proposition of one survivor to another in a land that had begun to refuse them both.

Bogart stared at her, silent and wide-eyed. Well... That was a mouthful. He'd never heard of such a name before.

"Sulukinak," he tried, working his tongue around each vowel carefully and with a great deal of patience, determined to commit it to memory properly. He waited for her to correct his pronunciation and when none came, he nodded. "S'pleasure to meet ya', Miss Sulukinak." Bogart shook his fur out then, releasing the tension that had built up beneath his skin and, with it, a thin sheet of snow that plumed out around him like a sort of glittering dust in the dawn light. When he looked back to her, she seemed contemplative. He felt for her, he did. Sick and hungry. This was the nature of being he had been trained to fix—to tend, to nurse, yet presently he only felt uncertain. How did he help in a land in which he didn't know the plants?

He lowered his head, offering a solemn nod. "Awful shame 'bout your friend," he said. "Reckon you're doin' good by 'em though if they're still kickin' in weather like this."

His muzzle twitched as she crept closer. He stood still as he could, certain that in her uncertainty she might flash her teeth or turn away if he so much as moved.

An offer.

An offer he hadn't imagined being presented with and therefore rendered him quiet for a moment as he considered it. While Bogart doubted his own abilities to... hunt, she proposed a fair alternative if he fumbled too horrendously. He could drag back just about any kill a wolf could take down. And, well, she had a friend in a bad way, didn't she? While he sported no vest nor collar nor title that designated him a rescue dog, what sort of integrity would he have if he denied a chance to help?

He supposed that was his answer.

"I'll hunt with ya'," he told her, softening the ends of each word with a quiet confidence only doggish determination could allow. "I've got ya' Miss Sulukinak."

With a tentative rumble of ardor, he lifted his great head, ears flopping and jowls shifting with the smack of his lips as he narrowed his eyes against the wind chill. "Your nose is better than mine by miles I reckon. You catch a trail of anything promisin'?" Bogart looked down at her before choosing to slowly close the distance between them, his steps drawn out enough to allow her room to recede if she so wished. "I caught wind of a doe a lil' ways back but I couldn't tell how old the tracks were."

Sulukinak watched the shake of his fur send snow scattering like pale moths in the dawn light. The motion was careless, open—nothing hidden, nothing coiled. She noted it without comment, the way one notes the direction of wind or the depth of a drift.

His tongue wrapped around her name carefully, almost reverently, as though it were fragile prey he did not wish to crush. No mockery in it. No claim. Only effort. The name was hers; how he carried it mattered less than that he spoke it without teeth behind the sound.

Good, she said simply. One word. Final.

Her nostrils flared once more, sweeping the air. The wind had shifted again, carrying threads from the south: faint caribou musk, old and scattered, overlaid with something fresher—ptarmigan perhaps, or hare, small but alive. Not enough for two, but a start. Enough to test this new arrangement.

She turned her head south, muzzle lifting slightly.

She took one step forward, then paused—glancing back over her shoulder at the russet bulk behind her.

Hare. If you scare it, we try again. There was a subtle warning there; flat, matter-of-fact, not a threat but a boundary drawn in snow. This was the creature's singular chance to prove himself friend over foe.

Her gaze flicked to the horizon, where the gray sky met white plain. The earth beneath them gave another faint shudder—barely felt, like breath held too long. The dream’s fissures still waited somewhere, patient. She felt them in her bones, in the scar that tugged with every shift of weight.

But hunger was here. Now.

And this strange, loud thing had chosen to walk beside her instead of away.

Sulukinak moved south without another word, paws breaking crust in measured steps, ears swiveled back to catch his heavier footfalls. The snow fell on, soft and steady, veiling their trail almost as soon as it was made.

Good.

Bogart nodded, "Good." He couldn't echo the instinct she possessed, he didn't even know how to pretend. All he could discern was all he already knew. Hare. Deer. Elk. Tracks—if they weren't fresh, he had no idea how to parse out more specifics. While he hadn't ever been convinced he'd starve, chased too many squirrels to believe it, he had wondered how long he'd have to go hungry before he got his fill of something.

The truth of the matter was simple, he needed her more than she needed him.

He'd have to prove he wasn't dead weight.

Sulukinak moved and he went to followed.

Froze with a single forepaw lifted to his chest.

It wouldn't be fair to call it a threat as much as it was a... strongly worded declaration. "Won't scare it," he reassured her. "Swear." This wasn't necessarily something he could promise and make good on it, but he reckoned the effort not to devastate this hunt had to mean more than nothing.

As she pressed forward, a slinking shadow emphasized by the snow, Bogart lowered his head in a half-stalk and plodded behind her. He tried to make sense of the way she behaved; the shift of muscles, the precision with which she cut their path without so much as a stutter in her step. To no surprise, he wasn't as graceful. Quieter than before but far, far from stealthy. For this reason, once the taste of... hare—hare—clouded his focus, he let out a soft whuff. Just enough to catch her attention. "S'close, ain't it?" He questioned, then cautiously probed, "Right?"

He hoped.