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[actuallyawolf]

idk finish this later, but it's here

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[hereticofthewilds]

Elsie flinches back a little from bared teeth, the way any animal would when threatened, but a bright smile breaks on her lips when she hears her name.

"Yes! Are you Ylva?"

[actuallyawolf]

"Yeah," she says, "I am."

Ylva stares for a moment, debating whether she's okay with Elsie being in her den (it's her own special space and she's allowed to be territorial about it) but after a moment ducks her head. "I wanted to -- well, do you want to come in or should we sit outside to talk?"

[hereticofthewilds]

"In!"

Elsie slithers into a shadow, travels down into the burrow as nothing but darker shades of shadow, and then materializes back out of the dark to sit beside Ylva.

"You're the new wolf."

[actuallyawolf]

Oh, that's... that's interesting, the movement through the shadows. And sort of neat, too.

"Yeah," Ylva says, "I am." And she's grateful that this is understood, without explanation or justification. That's rare, but it's always nice. "And you live wild out here all the time, don't you?"

[hereticofthewilds]

"I do. This is my forest. Born here." And she was raised here all her life. She never even saw another person besides her mother until she was eight years old.

"Trees like you. I like you."

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva ducks her head, feeling shy all of a sudden.

"I grew up in a forest too," she says. "A little different, but not very."

[hereticofthewilds]

"Were you alone?"

[actuallyawolf]

"I had my pack," she says. "And later there was Daenan. But there weren't, you know, people. Not really."

[hereticofthewilds]

Elsie nods. "I had Mother. And trees." Not much else.

"Who is Daenan?"

[actuallyawolf]

"He was, oh."

Ylva squirms a little, in the way of someone talking about something close to her heart. "Daenan is who found me when I was a pup. He couldn't take me from my family so he taught me things there in the woods. Like, how to talk. And magic. He's a druid, so am I." She frowns a little. "I haven't seen him in a long time. I don't know if he's still alive."

[hereticofthewilds]

Elsie's eyes soften with understanding. She was never so close to the Wilders that gathered to commune with her and mother, and who took care of her once mother passed. But they did try to teach her as much as they could.

"Some part lives," Elsie says, reaching to put her hand over Ylva's chest. "Here."