diamonds come rolling out

He took the opportunity while she was distracted with the dolphins to really look at her. She seemed to be in good shape, the scent of other wolves clung to her fur, so clearly she had found a pack, but judging by the haggard look on her face, she wasn’t finding pack life terribly reassuring, or at least comfortable enough to sleep... which meant she was probably in a den on her own. The scar over her eye made his lips quirk down in a ghost of a grimace. When (no if) her mother saw it, she would no doubt give him one to match her. After all, he was her assigned guardian, had been since his acceptance into the Scowle. That it had taken him this long to find her was a measure of failure on his part. He had a lot to make up to her, and he was still in two minds about whether or not he would complete his assigned mission or ever even bother returning to the pack they had both left on the other side of the sea.

He offered a smirk in response to her silence. The girl could out-wait a stone if she ever put her mind to it. "Yer look like shit. We’ll talk once yer’ve had some rest." He rested his chin on the top of her head, attempting to force it down to her paws. He didn’t need to say the words for her to know that she was safe with him. He tried to ignore the possum that had scaled his back and was now grumbling as it pushed through the fur over his hip, curling itself into a ball on the newly established sleeping pile.

Not that he planned on sleeping mind...

"speech".