Washed up and wrung out

With the wind-driven rain pummeling him, Tsuga could have been forgiven for missing the dark wolf in an already darkened forest. Even their voice as they called out to him was almost carried off by the wind, and given his prior meditation could just have easily been the spirits whispering. But instead he opened his eyes to find a stranger, who for all intents and purposes looked... Perhaps not unbothered, but certainly more eager to greet him than to escape the conditions they'd both found themselves in. Was this a pup lost in a gale?! No, closer inspection revealed them to be just much shorter in stature. Fair enough, who was he to jud- Wait, four eyes? He blinked.

"Hello yourself," he replied, raising his voice over the wind, but where to go from there was a real pickle. He suddenly had about a thousand questions for the stranger, and getting answers would probably mean getting hypothermia as well, so he continued walking and just hoped the small, dark stranger would trail along. "I don't suppose you know a good place to get out of this storm?"

His paws hadn't carried him more than a few dozen yards when something strange caught his eye further up ahead. Something light, fur? No, a collapsed wolf laying there in the mud. He swore under his breath, muttered, "Spirits preserve us," and rushed forward. She was a young thing, and smelled of sickness but anything more specific was lost on him. Healing wasn't a skillset he'd trained in but he knew enough to think that laying on the forest floor during a downpour probably wasn't doctor's orders, and being Literally Anywhere Else would suit her better. He placed a gentle paw on her shoulder and tried to nudge her. "Hello, miss? Can you hear me?"

His mother often used the phrase 'When it rains, it pours' when he was younger and it had never felt more true until now. Spirits preserve them, indeed.


"Talk" "Listen" Think