Partway up a tree, Enrico surveyed the land around him.

While he wasn't precisely afraid of heights, the male had never been particularly comfortable with them either, so he wasn't much of a climber. These trees though with their strange slant had seemed to invite a visitor to walk up their trunks to a higher vantage point. So, after a long moment of studying them to be sure they would hold his weight, he'd done just that.

It was a warm morning, so now that he was above the ground and laying still, the prey animals that would normally be alerted by his scent were beginning to cautiously go about their normal business, unaware that there was a predator nearby. The warm scents of hares and rodents and even a grumpy old porcupine who was waddling along the forest floor rose to him. These were the moments that separated a good hunter - whether for prey, or wolves - from the mediocre. Observation. Knowing where to place yourself in order to remain undetected from those creatures you wanted to know more about. All creatures, whether prey or predator, were creatures of habit. The more you observed them, the more you got to know those habits. And once you knew them, the easier it would be to take them.

And Enrico was a very, very good hunter.

Jayne leaned her left shoulder into one of the many twisted tree-trunks as she sat back on her haunches with a frown. She looked down at her right shoulder where the scraped and cut skin was still red and open. The tumble down a steep hill in the mountain pass certainly hadn't done her any favors. Her shoulder had gotten the worst of the fall, but her whole right side was a bit battered. She really wanted to find some herbs to patch up her shoulder like Momma Amalia had taught her, but so far the north was proving to be nearly bare when it came to those things. She had to do something, but she had no idea what. Her ears flicked back against her head and she sighed softly. Really she just wished that she hadn't gotten separated from Tiburtius. The shortcut through the mountains hadn't been a shortcut at all. She got back to her paws and made herself keep moving even though she had a bit of a limp to keep from putting too much pressure on her right foreleg. If she could just get back to the east maybe she could find Tiburtius or at least some herbs. Hopefully he wouldn't keep looking for her around the north and he'd have the same idea of meeting her at the mangroves... If she could even figure out how to get back that direction. It all just made her wish she hadn't left in the first place. She knew Diana... Bridget... She knew her sister, whatever she wanted to be called, didn't want to come back so why did she drag her brother with her in an attempt to bring her back anyway? It was all for nothing. Thoughts of doubt and worry about her mother clouded her mind to the point that she barely noticed the world around her - including the wolf in the tree that she was walking under. "Talk" "You" Think

Even if Enrico had missed the soft female scent carried by the warm air up to his perch, he would have had to be sleeping not to notice when the slender gray and white form meandered beneath him. He ended up watching her approach with his head cocked to the side with a natural curiosity. Not many wolves seemed to choose to travel the north, and she was - he noted, as her scent brushed him again - injured. Enrico's gentlemanly nature could not allow him to let such a thing pass without offering assistance, though he had no healing knowledge himself. "Good evening, signora," he called down to her calmly. "Are you in need of assistance? I see you are injured."

The voice that sounded from above startled her and she jumped a little as her head popped up to see where in the world the mysterious voice was coming from. She fell back on her haunches in the process, hitting the ground with a soft thud. Her bright blue gaze landed on the gray and black man standing over her in the tree and she blinked with confusion for a moment. It was such an unusual sight to see a wolf in a tree that she wasn't really sure how to respond at first, but she finally regained her composure and got herself back to her paws, shuffling her feet a bit as she shifted back to be able to see him a little more easily. "Oh, um... Maybe. I don't really know where I am. I got separated from my older brother as we were going through a mountain pass and a fell and hit my shoulder and... here I am." It wasn't a complete explanation, but it gave a good over view of her situation she thought. His scent had some signs that he was in a pack and a hopeful idea popped into her head. It was a bit nieve perhaps to hope that a complete stranger would help her out this much, but she didn't quite know what other options she had. "You wouldn't happen to live nearby would you? I know how to take care of the wounds, I just don't have any herbs with me. If I could just rest up for a few days maybe..." "Talk" "You" Think

Enrico regarded the female with suspicion carefully cloaked behind polite patience. He couldn't help it, that he would suspect ulterior motives behind her seemingly-innocent story and questions. It was likely she was telling the truth but... a lifetime living on the other side of the law, and then later living for so long on the run, it seemed a dangerous coincidence, that she just happened to want to know where he lived. It didn't help that he was now by experience inclined to distrust a seemingly innocent female. Still, she was injured, so whether she was playing an angle or not was irrelevent - she still needed help, and he couldn't afford to alienate those around here by allowing his suspicions to turn her away. He could just imagine their judgmental horror at the idea.

So he smiled calmly, politely, and as charmingly as he always had, and bowed his head to her. "It's not far, if you can make the walk. Just north of the wall, through the pines, and a bit of a ways on the sea ice."

He edged his way down the leaning trunk of the tree, jumping the last several feet to land beside her. "I don't know much about herbs, I'm afraid, but there are some stored in my home from another occupant. I don't know how old they are, but you are welcome to look."