stacking

@Mouse <3

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It was hungry.

Hungry.

Hungry.

The feeling gnawed and gnashed in its stomach, churning around the emptiness within. It kept turning its head to seek a companion that was no longer there. It kept looking down at the footprints it left behind and wondering why there were not two sets.

It wondered a great many things, like why it was here, and where it could find food, and why it could no longer remember its friend's face. Something whispered in its mind that the memory of its friend was a more distant one than it believed, when it only felt like yesterday that they went to sleep alongside one another for the last time.

But no. It was distant enough that if it did not think hard about its companion, it would forget about him altogether, and it did not want that to happen. If its mind wandered too far, it convinced itself that it had been traveling alone for its entire life.

That was not true. It remembered the feeling of hands running through its fur. It remembered a mumbling voice. It remembered warmth.

It remembered. It remembered.

It just did not remember well enough.

Hunger rumbled in its stomach once more, bringing its mind back to the present. Flitting between the two was a jarring thing, for its paws had brought it further than it expected. The pads of them stung and left pink imprints in the snow where they'd cracked and bled, but that discomfort was bearable. Was commonplace.

It paused before the great tree, and settled down to lick at the bottom of its foot, tongue laving over the broken skin and nose wrinkling at the coppery tang that flooded its mouth.
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It had been followed.

This would perhaps be an alarming thing had the Creature not noticed the posturing from the stranger. A wolf - a big one - approached with far more confidence than the Creature ever would. But the wolf was not aggressive, it seemed, and had a smile that the Creature had seen on its friend when he had caught a particularly delicious meal for them. Triumphant.

This was not a threat, its mind supplied even as its body tensed, coiled, ready to run at the slightest wrong movement. The wolf spoke, words puffed out, as though they were out of breath. Had they run all this way to check on... it?

What for?

The Creature took a moment to think before it cautiously, silently reached out one forepaw, twisted so the pad faced upward for the wolf to look at.

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The Creature's eyes were so round it was surprised they hadn't fallen out of its face. The big wolf approached it and it did its best not to scurry backward against the base of the tree, though its breathing picked up in its chest and its body shivered without its conscious effort. It felt very much a cornered rabbit, as though it were about to become someone's prey.

Wolf approached the mongrel slowly, but it did not shove them away. Golden eyes twin suns on its face as the wolf leaned in to lick at its paw pad, soothing the weathered skin there, and a strange heat prickled along its cheeks.

Imagery rose behind its eyes - a memory of a stone being thrown, nicking the flesh of one of its front legs. Of a hairless, two-legged being - smaller than the others - approaching it, dexterous paws gentle as it tied a strip of cloth around the bleeding injury.

It did not understand concepts like healing and supplies, but it could recognize gentleness when it saw it. The same kindness existed within this wolf's green eyes that its friend had possessed a lifetime ago.

It made the Creature's eyes burn and its chest wrenched with an unpleasant, aching emotion. It did not understand.

The wolf crouched down, low to the ground, and the Creature obediently approached, slow and tentative, hoping it had parsed the wolf's words correctly. Had it ever been carried before? It did not think so. Its friend was too small to lift it, and so it had walked and walked and walked even as its paws bled and cracked all over the snow.

Stopping just short of the wolf, the Creature paused, uncertain. Apprehension froze its limbs in place, unsure of if it was really okay to touch. Cautiously, slowly, the Creature placed one paw over the wolf's back, eyes flicking over toward their face to check for any signs of anger or reproach.

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