---> I'm NOT with stupid (vaguely points to hanako)

Makara resisted the urge to flinch when he reached out to touch her. It had been such a long time since she'd been touched by another wolf - first because she'd been trapped underground alone so long, and by the time she'd reached the surface again other wolves had at first seemed alien. She didn't welcome physical contact and found it difficult to initiate on her own. For a moment when he reached out, she was struck by their size difference and transported to a different time, when Azure would buffet her. But there was real warmth to Bas' tentative pat, as if he was trying to make sure she was real.

When her tale wound down, he enveloped her in a hug that took her breath away. Was that a tear he wiped away? Perhaps he had made it out of childhood unscarred, or at least not so deeply maimed, by their parents. Makara was rigid and stiff at first, so unused to being touched, but after a moment she melted into his embrace and buried her face in his chest, inhaling a smell that was somehow familiar and entirely new.

"I'm alive," she repeated, wriggling slightly when he loosened his grasp so that she wasn't speaking muffled words into his chest, but not so much that left his embrace. It was... nice. Makara was surprised by how sorely she missed the casual affections of wolves you knew well. She'd been a vagabond for her entire life now. Was she ready to come home? "I... I don't know if I know how to stay in one place," Makara admitted. It wasn't a no, but she couldn't answer when her mind was racing with thoughts and questions. "What is it like here now? I'm not sure I could be of much use to you," she murmured, turning her face away from him again as her glasses misted up from the inside.

Speech