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Nate !

Cecil woke facefirst in a mound of snow.

Well, at first it was just cold, and that could be anywhere. Men who weren't born to it always thought sand meant hot, never understood the teeth it grew in the night until they were freezing by the light of their campfire and no wood to hand.

But this wasn't quite desert-cold, and when they managed to lift their head up, hurting like hell, they realized it was because they were laying in a mound of snow. And this was not, in fact, the desert.

Cecil was no stranger to snow, right- but they were damn sure when the gunshot'd rang out they'd been on horseback, at a full gallop over red sand.

They straightened themself out. Scanned their surroundings with an eye that was trained to pick out danger at a mile, whether that be bandits or soldiers or wild animals. But, well, a snowy forest wasn't anything familiar. Maybe this was what it looked like up in the peaks of the mountains, only they'd never gone that far toward the sky.

And if the bullet had hit- and they were also damn sure it had, the way their head was pounding like a rotten tooth- who the hell would have dragged them all the way up here, never mind surviving the night?

Disoriented, they lifted a hand to wipe at their eyes. Smacked themself in the nose instead.

Cecil spat, squinted, realized the hand they were holding out didn't have four fingers and a thumb but thick golden-brown fur and short black claws. Realized their nose was a long, slender muzzle. Realized that they were sitting on four legs instead of two.

They took a deep breath. Let it out. Instead of a hum it came out in a low howl, a coyote-song. Their breath fogged into a long cloud on the wind. They looked up at that clear blue sky.

None of the stories told about men waking up as animals. Least, none of the ones that weren't a warning.

Skill — Heartbroken

The call of a stranger far too close for comfort had turned Nate from his nose-down meandering into alert attention.

He'd gone some distance from Mithwyth today, and still worried first for her before himself. They'd settled into a sort of not-routine, where they meandered in the same direction and sometimes split off, but always picked up one another's trails again between capers.

Oh, who was he kidding! She was the one who did the finding, most of the time.

He could track prints with canny certainty, but the nose was still overwhelming most days, and with mastery of it for advantage, she'd always outdo him. Catching up to the skill of one born to it proved no easy feat.

In his old life he'd been valued for his fieldcraft — a real survivalist. Even some mountain men found reasons to be surprised at what he could read on wind and grass. Eleanore, raised on silk and sugared tea, had known nothing of the art at all, as was considered appropriate for a well-bred woman.

Memory cut a pang through him, of showing her fresh bear spoor by the stream and telling her to be careful — only for her to insist she wanted him to lead her to it for a peek, as if it were a prize sow at the fair.

(He'd shown her. A mother with four cubs. He could have denied Eleanore nothing no matter how foolhardy, and listened on the way home to the names she intended for her own children, someday.)

Nate was coming to understand wahya didn't exactly organize themselves the same way as folks did where he'd come from. She-wolves weren't afforded a domestic life. Mithwyth knew how to hunt and range, and had done so on her own for long enough it felt presumptuous to think she might suddenly need his help doing either.

If anybody was the damsel here, it was him.

And here he stood, without his knight in shining armor. A pair of them offered some assurance of protection if only because numbers were a deterrent, but in a fight, he lacked certainty of the rest of him about as much as the nose.

Ducking into a crouch, he glanced up at Ko-Ga and clicked his tongue. With a caw the crow went on ahead, and Nate did his best to follow at a distance.

Finding the other dog wasn't all that hard, since they wanted to be found, apparently, or were not clever enough to know that sound would make you be found.

Ko-Ga used to watch ranch dogs cry and whine and bark at him, and still not understand why they could not sneak up on him. He'd shit on their heads and laugh. He probably wasn't going to shit on this one. Unless they were mean to Nate-Dog, in which case, Ko-Ga was not committed to restraint.

Wintertouched wings landed on a snowy pine and Ko-Ga tilted his head at the stranger. He could say hello, but decided to keep that to himself for now. Aaa aaa aa!! Came out instead.

They shook all that thought out of their head. They'd consider that once they knew it was reality, and not a moment before. It didn't make sense, and they weren't fond of the idea anyhow.

Cecil got to their feet. Paws. It was just as disorienting as they thought it'd be. They tried to throw out an arm to steady themself, on instinct, and skidded into an awkward bow in the snow instead. The shape of the head was different, so the eyes weren't set quite the same way, and that didn't make much sense to their scrambled brain either.

But they'd been out an arm before (this wasn't their first time taking a tumble from horseback) and with a little care they picked themself back up and took stock. Four legs, all of which seemed to work as they should, much as they could tell. A tail. Two pointed ears- well, they couldn't see those but could feel them.

What they could see of their new coat when they craned their head back was a dozen different shades of desert brown.

Also, there was a crow. A pretty crow, with speckled black-and-white feathers, staring directly at them.

It tilted its head and croaked.

Cecil carefully turned themself in a circle so they were facing each other. They could smell it- the musty smell of a feather when you put your nose up to it, but just as potent at this distance and with a lot of sharper less pleasant notes. And then there was the snow, the water, the pine trees, something distinctly like wet dog - that might have been them. They felt pretty damp.

The headache chose that moment to jab more sharply right above their eye.

Cecil winced.

"Yá'át'ééh," ("Hello,") they said to the bird, and were surprised to find their breath shape the sounds like they were still in the right body. Huh. They tried English next- was more likely to work. "Don't suppose you could tell me where I am?"

Wasn't out of the realm of possibility that a bird could speak if they could, right?

Words! Dog-words, but words all the same. Ko-Ga fluffed up his feathers in excited satisfaction to be acknowledged. He decided he liked this one.

Yes, he knew where they were. In the place by the stream, only a few hours of dog-stepping to the snow line. He knew about the mountains nearby, and the ice-lake where the other dogs roamed wild on open plain. He knew this was not the place he had lived before, and there was magic in it, because birds knew things. And among birds, he fancied that he knew even more things than most.

Like dog words.

But Ko-Ga hadn't found the right time to prank Nate-Dog yet with his newfound skill to speak them, and didn't want this one to spoil the surprise. So instead only replied, AAA AAA aaa! And hopped from his branch to glide down close to the stranger. Aa!

His head tilted, curious. He hopped closer.

Nate-Dog would be here soon, but Ko-Ga felt no need to wait before investigating.

The crow fluffed up its feathers and gave a couple sharp caws, but that was all just crow-speech- they'd heard it their whole life no different than now. Wasn't a human tongue they didn't know. Ah, well. Had been a stretch to hope.

But it did hop off its branch and flutter down into the snow next to them, and that was mighty odd for a bird.

Cecil crouched low in the snow, curious. Their brain told them it ought to be cold, but at worst they felt a little wet, felt a little bit of a bite in the air. Their human body would've shivered, but this coyote-wolf form didn't seem to mind it none.

"You're a bold one, huh?" they said. Crows were smart creatures, even among animals, but if they had a hand they wouldn't have reached out to touch and here they didn't either- kept calm, let it come to them if that was what it wanted. "I've seen crows, but none of 'em would get so close to a human." They cocked their head, grinned. "None as pretty as you, either."

'Course, they weren't a human, now...however long that lasted. Cecil clicked their tongue and looked down at the fluffy brown paws replacing their fingers. Right- the scavenger birds followed hunters to their prey. Made sense. What luck it was for this crow to stumble onto what must've been the only damn wolf in this forest who didn't know their tail from their nose.

"Afraid I'm not much for huntin', if that's what you're hopin' for," they said, turning their eyes back to the bird. "Not with this body. Might be better off findin' someone else."

Ko-Ga tilted his head. Another dog that had not always been a dog! And one that might be as helpless as Nate-Dog, by what Ko-Ga could gather. He hoped this one was not also Nate. Two Nates were about as much as he could currently maintain. But he would do what he must.

Aaa Aaa! He answered, a friendly sound he knew Nate-Dog would recognize as such.

Mindful of his footfalls, Nate traveled with less stealth than a wolf should rightly have, but better than the utter ineptitude of his earliest attempts. One step at a time. Literally and figuratively. Arrowhead ears pricked at the muffle of a voice in close-distance, and the call of Ko-Ga in return. His feathered friend didn't return to lead him closer or warn him away, and didn't sound distressed.

Was it someone they already knew?

Or was the damn bird trying to get him killed? Again?

With a long-suffering grimace, Nate followed the noise until he could be sure he didn't know the speaker. But they had a familiar cadence to their voice, common among men from the West. Which was... odd to find carried over into the words of wolves. Whether that made for good or bad news, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just news.

Ko-Ga! Nate called to announce himself by, and a few strides later the shadow of him became visible through snow-laden trees. He stopped a safe distance away. Took in the stranger. Built like the coywolves he used to sing to at night in desert scrub, and colored for it, too.

Ko-Ga had hopped very close, unperturbed, but Nate still hesitated to approach uninvited. Only smiled so the warmth creased his eyes, Howdy. You, uh, found my friend, I see.

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I love Ko-Ga "Two Nates were about as much as he could currently maintain" made me laugh out loud LOL

Cecil wasn't sure how much of this the crow could even understand, if anything at all. But they liked to think they were talking to something that could listen- they'd made an audience of the sheep a time or two. Gotten a round of laughs when their brothers and sisters came past, but that was all in good spirit, and anyway the sheep were better listeners sometimes.

…And that thought wasn't leading anywhere helpful.

They were damn near relieved when someone started crashing through the trees. For a second. Then much the opposite, with nothing to defend themself with and no means of escape.

A few things happened in swift succession. Cecil shot upright, caught sight of the figure in the trees, realized quick that it was a wolf, and realized the wolf was talking about the crow who was still idling, head cocked and entirely unbothered, only a foot or so away.

And then realized the wolf was speaking English.

Thank God someone else here spoke a tongue Cecil knew. They'd never been so relieved to hear that language in their life.

"Afternoon," Cecil said. "Wouldn't say I found him so much as the opposite. Don't think I'm up to doing much finding."

They straightened up, keeping their movements slow and steady, same way they'd come up on a lost sheep when it strayed too far from the herd. Taking in the stranger - a man not much larger than themself, all whites and bluegreys that put them in mind of the roaning on a wild mustang, sporting a warm smile that looked more human than the way a dog bared teeth. And presuming a wolf wasn't so unlike a dog, they knew what to look for when it came to a signal to back the hell off, and didn't see any of it here.

But, they had to keep reminding themself- they were a wolf or coyote or some such now and the normal laws of nature didn't quite seem to apply. If this was also some sort of man in wolf skin, probably meant he could hide his intentions same as they could.

Still. The crow between them sure seemed unbothered.

"You, uh, from around here?" Cecil asked.

LOOL <33

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Nate took in the careful movement. Little darts of brown-blue eyes to feet, ears, tail, lips — subtle and certain in their assessment. Deciding the stranger posed no immediate threat, Nate started an approach, though he angled himself rather than move straight forward. Wide paws crunched in pale snow.

Not really, he answered. Not from anywhere close to here, actually. A wry smile followed, and he wanted to ask the other the same. It even occurred to Nate to offer a cryptic comment about the mysterious and unknowable nature of the world that facilitated chance meetings between drifters, which clearly meant this wolf business was starting to click, because half the wolves he'd met had chosen to open with something similar.

There was still just a little too much human in him to entirely forego the formalities he'd been raised on.

Nate. A short pause. The offering of a last name had mostly seemed to confuse the ones he'd met, but it still felt odd not to offer the familial attachment, so he added, Ronan. The, uh, recently dispersed. Pleased to meet you, Mister ...? Head tilted, asking silently for reciprocation.