Crevan
We forget all the names that we used to know
Well, weren’t they the perfect pair? Two little know-it-all’s pushed together in one tiny forest. Crevan doesn’t mind. Her high-pitched retort only draws one brow up into a comical expression for a face so deadly, the tip of his own tail beginning to flick up and down with silent mirth. “Only as obvious as the nose on your face. Look at us -” He demands of her, turning his own eyes towards his hip, his back, before looking again at her proper, sitting form. “- We’re not normal in coloration, at least for Nature’s standards, and we talk.” He observes, hitting the final nail of truth into the coffin of her question.
With a listless thump the wolf-boy slides down onto his elbows, stretching out his thick form to lay comfortably over the forest floor. His mouth gapes, in a yawn, and both upper and lower sets of teeth gleam wickedly while his pink tongue curls at the back of his throat. His nape, rolled now into the semblance of a lady’s fur-lined collar, relaxes only once his jaws click easily together again. “Have you ever met another shifter before?” The wolf questions lightly, curiosity igniting his dark gaze as he comes to rest his heavy skull on outstretched paws.
A lonely ear flicks backwards and then rotates towards her once more. “I’m a third-generation wolf shifter. It’s in my bloodline. We’re supposed to recognize others like us from them.” He relates, dividing their shifter kin from the natural, dumb animals of Beqanna. He’s not trying to brag, quite the opposite; the very infliction of his tone is matter-of-fact and light. This other skin had been his whole life up until this point, had even been his ancestor’s life. The way of the Wolf, his dam had told him, and like she had learned from her sire, so had Crevan learned from her.
Perhaps, one day, Crevan’s own offspring might walk the same path. But for now it’s only himself and the odd she-fox. “No other form, then?” He ponders aloud, drawing their conversation back to the question she'd so craftily avoided. If she had another shape he'd be impressed, there were very few who did. All the same, his curiosity is piqued and, for a growing colt nearing independence, a piqued curiosity isn't something to be ignored.
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow