Crevan
We forget all the names that we used to know
The command is easily met with answer. Like a tan wraith Crevan rises from his crouched position behind a sparse bush, every inch of movement pushing him higher and higher until, finally, he is towering over the finely-made fox and looking down upon her with curiously surprised eyes. Nightlock in color, a blue-black bruise of an eyeshade, his gaze sweeps fore and aft of that red-gold body before one pale paw stretches forth to plant solidly into the earth. The others will follow and they draw out the rest of his massive form: a wolf of gargantuan measures, even more boldly made than his grandsire, who had been the largest of their lineage until Crevan was born. They are humorously at odds, the two of them, though at one point in their ancestry they were rather close to the trunk of one another.
But time has stretched their branches far away now and while they both maintain a predators stance, the differences could not be more apparent. “That’s a rather bold way to start things, little cousin.” The wolf-boy smarts, eager to make a joke of their close relation by saddling her with a familiar title. “But it probably saved your life. You look like an easy meal out here, you know. What with your flashy color and your playful racket.” He tells her. He means, of course, her little zipping back and forth that had stirred not only his attention but probably other unwanted eyes too.
“If you’re trying to be stealthy, you’re doing it all wrong.” He says with finality, because unlike her Crevan believes himself to be well-versed on these matters. He never stops to consider that stealth might not have been her objective. “Besides, you’re straying very close to kingdom territory and - trust me - that’s not where you want to be.”
In conclusion he sits, still peering down at her with that sour expression. It comes to him suddenly that this is his first encounter with another shifter; that’s what she’s got to be, isn’t it? Other, natural creatures didn’t speak their language. “I’m Crevan. Do you have any other forms?”
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow