Into the winter chill, stark against the pale snow, appeared a sight rare in these wilds even in the long years since humans had gone away - a dog, one Link Albrecht by name, content and perfectly at home in the wilderness despite his domesticated ancestry. His long stride carried him along at a smooth lope that kicked up a spurt of snow behind him with each step. His tongue hung out of his open muzzle, but he showed no signs of being exhausted, carrying himself with animation and a wide grin, bright eyed and appreciative of his surroundings.

This was much different than the ruins his family had always inhabited, the moldering city that humans had once ruled, the decaying remnants of a society long abandoned. His clan was one of the few that had continued to remain pure of breed in the wake of the loss of their masters, though they had carefully strayed away from the exaggerated characteristics humans had prized to create a stronger, larger, healthier creature than the German Shepherd Dogs of old. He himself was the end product of his clan's vision, he and his generation, but unlike most of his siblings and cousins, he had a restlessness in him. He wasn't content to live in ruins his whole life, venturing out only to hunt and return to the city. He wanted more, and had left to seek out a different life.

This life.

He could scent other canines, not dogs but the larger lupine cousins he'd seen on occasion from a distance during hunts, but never up close. By smell he'd guess that wolves and coyotes were the only large canids he'd meet out here. No dog scent at all. It was a lonely thought for a dog who had never known anything but his own kind, but he didn't dwell on it overly much. It was the life he'd wanted, after all.

He slid to a stop in another fountain of snow. A weasel popped its tiny fierce head out of the newly created snowbank to chatter angrily at him, but Link only stuck his tongue out at the little creature and bounced off at an angle, unperturbed by the angry sounds.

Away. She had gone away again, flighty at the approach of a stranger. Flighty because her brother had not been there fast enough. Pamela was not necessarily afraid, no, but cautious. She didn’t know what had become of the pack that her brothers were once part of. That Quelt at one time ruled, and later ruled by the lass Arian. It was no longer home, was it? Or could it be? The question raged itself in her mind as she thought long and hard about the answer. The woman was on the move, and it was movement of a beast taller than the average rodent, taller than any wild cat she’d seen, that caught her attention. Yet he was also small, his silhouetted form her only sign of what he might be by sight. Her nose told her that this was a canine, though wolf? No. His scent was different. Pamela would approach cautiously, ears flicked back and a trace of wariness in her voice. “Greetings stranger. A fine place, this nook.” It had been her home for so long with her adopted son. Was Shiki still here? “It looks far more beautiful come the spring, summer, and fall however.” "Listen to me talk," 'but read my thoughts.'

Table by:: Riv