Early morning

Lala sat neatly on her haunches, ending her advance as Sirius began to detail the origins of his companions. Her ears flattened slightly. "I'm sorry to hear about your parents." She swallowed, and cleared her throat. "A vulture as a gift. That's... well, I guess it isn't any weirder than anything else, huh?" She lightly tapped her left hind leg to the ground; the silver band clasped around it was a testament to that. Still... the past few months had served as a crash course in just how diverse the world was. Some of the wolves she had encountered carried armor, tools, potions. Others didn't even know what a medicine wolf was. There were gaps here and there, though these lands she had moved through for the past few days had proved to be the most expansive.

His next question sent a jolt down her spine. Yes, Malalia, why aren't you with your pack, or your parents? She knew very well what she looked like, to some: a delicate little girl lost in the woods. But she wasn't delicate, or lost. She was just... moving around. Whose business was it but her own, if she had no destination?

She tossed her head to the side and flicked her tail, trying to mask the sudden tightness in her limbs. "Hunting," she answered finally, turning her green eyes back on the wolf. A strange twinge of guilt pricked at her pads. The yearling usually blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, but this time around, she physically. Could. Not. Do it. The lump in her throat wouldn't let her. "I was hunting a pheasant, but I... tripped and ended up losing it. It was actually kind of tragic," she chuckled ruefully, remembering the exact moment it slipped from her paws. Lala was usually more careful than that, but more work and less prey than she was used to, didn't exactly help her case. Hunting would be so much easier with her packmates around--

...Well, anyway. Maybe it was a misdirection, but it wasn't a lie, after all, and it wasn't like he asked for her life story. "So I slept over there--" she motioned with her nose, back to her bed beneath the willow, "--and ended up here. I'm not sure I'll be staying for long, though." She smiled lightly, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.