Outlaw was thrilled with the new landscape all about him.  New tree’s, new ground, even the water had a somewhat different taste to it. The young dog had the look of a large german shepherd mix to him, making him smaller than most the wolves but of even size of the majority of those who he had spent his life around until now.  Except for a few visitors Outlaw had grown up with his family which made up a rich background of mutts. The grey dog with black markings wore a tan-colored cowboy hat on his head.

There was never any need to hurry in his mind so he would sniff out this tree, walk a few steps and oh, look at that froggy in the stream!  Another few steps and smell where something had left its mark.  So and so on, every little thing deserved at least a moment of his attention.  The young dog’s tail was wagging fervently behind him.  

After a few minutes he did stop long enough to get himself a drink from one of the streams and taking time to just enjoy the full scenery of the place before him instead of the individual details.

Moonshine raced through the willows that reigned here, she was still training for her eventual role, but it still felt good to wear her mask outside pack lands. Inside everyone seemed to know her, but out here she could protect her identity. More and more she was trying to focus on being better, and she saw some of the older Ashen members running laps and such so she decided to do the same. Being a yearling brought her more freedom than she once had, and she was taking full advantage of it.

Still, the girl remained close to the Empire, still taking comfort in its closeness were something to happen. The older she got the more aware of the evils in the world she was and the more determined she was to fight them. She couldn’t be torn from her training by anything, and she internally went through a track of motivational sayings ran through her mind. At least until she caught a glimpse of another dog.

This wasn’t a dog she knew, they were rare besides her family so she had to stop and find out who this was. The girl bounced forward, her feathery tail wagging excitedly at her back as she approached. ”Hey! Hello! Who are you?” She may have forgotten a bit of her manners, but who could blame her when she was so excited?

Raising his head from drinking Outlaw saw a sight that promised even more enjoyment!  Another dog was running up and she had some cool mask covering over her eyes.  She was smaller than him and a mix of primarily white but dappled with greys.  She was pretty! Outlaw rarely thought another dog or wolf wasn’t pretty or handsome it just kind of went with that positive outlook everything got.

When she ran up his tail swaged even faster, it was raised in excitement and his body posture had that nice curve of happiness to it. Outlaw hopped over his little stream to meet her, why make her do all the work of getting to him? “Hi! I’m Outlaw.  I just got here the other day.  Well, here as in this land, hm” wasn’t that confusing too as that could mean forest over plains and such as that? “I was living on an island till a while back!” That last part of his cheery explanation might make sense.  “I decided I wanted to see more of the world though.”

Outlaw had never learned to just give a simple answer apparently, long explanations were good right?  How else did you make friends if you didn’t tell them all about you?  “What about you? Who are you, and do you live here? It’s really nice.  We didn’t have trees like these on my island.” Outlaw took another look up at one of the trees as the though he had reminded himself to be impressed by them before focusing again merrily on her.

He mirrored her enthusiasm and the both of them hopped closer to one another. Moonshine grinned happily, her bright eyes flashed mischievously and her long furred tail seemed to wag a thousand miles a minute. Outlaw didn’t hold back either, he quickly offered his name in return to her quick questions. Even her family seemed to be more wolf like than dog most of the time, but she connected strongly with her father, and this hatted boy.

”Nice to meet you, Outlaw!” The girl spoke excitedly, like everything was the greatest thing to ever happen. ”I’m Moo.....” She’d almost given her full name! Still undecided about her superhero name she stuck with that. ”I’m Moo!” She grinned brightly, her blue eyes flashing. ”I live close by in the Ashen Empire. It is really nice, there are islands and white trees, and my family lives there.” She explained matter of factly. ”I’ve never seen other dogs besides my dad.”

“Nice to meet ya Moo,” the words offered cheerily.  He guessed it was a longer name by how she had stalled then repeated it but that was fine by Outlaw.  Certainly, his real name wasn’t Outlaw, it just sounded better.  Maybe he could help? “You know, my real name isn’t actually Outlaw, but the real one was super boring and didn’t fit me at all.  Outlaw sounds great though, doesn’t it? I picked it out for myself.” It sounded like dogs were really rare here, that hadn’t occurred to Outlaw.  Did most of the dogs around live on the island? Were they really rare?  Outlaw had never seen many wolves so he imagined them to be rarer.  Outlaw had both close and extended family on the island which was more than the wolves so he had always imagined things backward.  Hmm. “Plenty of dogs on forgotten Island, most of my family.  Except cousin Barnek left when I was young for some reason, then my um, relative in some stretched out fashion, they left to go exploring.  Dace, our best fisher ever, went to go find new fish to catch.” Of course, she wanted to know these details? “But most of us stayed on the island.” “Ashen empire must have a lot of wolves, at least that sure makes it sound huge.” How many wolves made up an empire?  It was a fancy title.  Outlaw's tail was swishing back and forth back and forth. “I’d like to visit and see the place someday, you know, if your fam, um, empire allowed it.  Are there a lot of families in the empire? How many islands? Are they very big?” In Outlaw's imagination the size of the land the empire held was growing to rather massive proportions. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

Moonshine wagged her long haired tail as she watched Outlaw, she was obviously fascinated by another dog. He was much more accepting of her than many of the full bred wolves she met, Moon didn’t miss the way some of them looked at her folded ears or envied her long silky fur. Besides their lineage Moonshine would also share the characteristic of choosing their own name. Moon hadn’t quite decided on her own hero name, but she felt encouraged knowing the other dog had a different name. Not that she was going to share her full title.

”Me too!” She told him mysteriously but didn’t offer any more information about her name. She’d already spoken too much. ”You could!” She told him, agreeing about his visit to the Empire. ”A lot of the wolves aren’t very nice though,” she’d never let them see it, but she could feel the animosity from some of the Klein family. ”The islands seem to go forever,” she told him as her eyes looked up to the sky to think about the question. ”There are sand bridges to a couple of them, but the black island you have to swim to. I’ve never been there.” It was kind of scary and the water was too strong for her tiny form.

She was so friendly, it seemed great.  As much as he liked how happy she was he seemed a bit surprised that the wolves she lived with weren’t very friendly.  “Are they just the quiet sort?   My aunt Dina doesn’t seem very friendly, but ya know she is she just doesn’t show it really.” It was hardly a clear explanation but Outlaw didn’t seem to take much time to think through what he said.  “You’re nice and you live with them so surely there are friendlier ones?”   Outlaw so used to living amongst other dogs the notion of prejudice by breed was a thing to be ignorant of. “Huh, hey when I come we should go to the black islands then!  If you don’t like swimming we could work on making a new raft?  I’ve never seen white tree’s, do white tree branches float like the normal tree branches?”   Of course, the parts of the empire she had been to would still be new to him which would be fun however, wouldn’t she also want to see the area she hadn’t been to yet? It made sense to Outlaw. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think