And here's to you, Professor Whistlefoot

The male obeyed, and Cassiel nodded sharply. Though he did eye the other wolf with a dismayed sort of wariness when he leaped onto the roots right in front of him to shake off, and watched him with a disapproving frown to make sure he didn't spray Cassiel with muddy water in drying himself off. He didn't, though, and Cassiel eased back down without really having been aware that he'd tensed up and nearly risen to his feet. He had a cold, wet, miserable life of his own without being subjected to everyone else's cold wet muddy misery all over him, and he'd been fully prepared to scramble further away on the roots if it had become clear he'd need to retreat from the splash zone.

His jaw clenched involuntarily at the wolf's comment, eyes half-narrowing as a memory arrowed through his heart. Senka as a pup, shouting at him for some bossy thing he'd said, 'you can't tell me what to do, you're not my mother!' How it had nearly come to a fight between the two spunky pups before their mother had stepped between them and chided them. How even then she'd been tired and thin and if he'd ever realized that he was going to lose her he would never have wasted all that time...

"Well," he started in a strangled, half-angry voice before falling silent a moment to fiercely banish the memory and the choking grief. Inconvenient emotions wrestled back into their box, he continued somewhat sharply, with a huff, "Well, I would bloody well hope so. What sort of mum would let her sprog's paw pads rot off in the mud?" He shook his head, a short, irritated motion as he glared at the mucky water surrounding the roots. "Shithole of a land anyway," he muttered half to himself. "No fit place for a wolf."