A Horse of the Wolves [AW]

At first, Karine thought she'd been hallucinating. She wouldn't have doubted the possibility, especially not after what she'd seen already in her relatively short life thus far...or how long she'd been traveling. Anyone, she figured, could have gone mad under such stress, and sometimes--glowing light in the distance or not--she wondered if she'd already started to succumb to such a fate.

Yet, no matter how many times she blinked, how many times she turned her head, or how stubbornly she tried to refocus her attention, the light didn't go away. Karine eventually resigned herself to investigating it, wondering if once she found the most likely source of the alleged light, the vision would go away and she'd see the world normally again. But what she found was far from what she expected.

He was huge, not unlike other prey animals she'd seen, but then, that wasn't what puzzled--or relieved--her the most. As it turned out, she was far from mad, proven by the beast's tapered horn upon his skull and the soft glow that radiated off his hide. Karine continued to observe him from a safe distance, tilting her head as she also picked up on a rather curious scent. Had she approached a pack border? What sort of place had she found, and why was there a horse patrolling its border?

Eventually, Karine's curiosity got the better of her, and she approached the beast at a slow lope. Her stance showed no indication of a present hunting drive; quite the contrary, her steps were fluid as ever, sending her nearly floating over the snowy ground until she was close enough to know she'd be heard by the stranger when she finally presented herself with a cordial, albeit slightly puzzled, "Pardon me." She waited a moment before continuing, adding to her presence a warm smile to further emphasize her harmless intentions so close to obviously claimed lands. "I apologize, but I...couldn't help noticing you from afar. Might such a magnificent creature have a name?" And might he be able to tell her about the settlement she'd found?

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