This place reminded him (in a way that brought up no fondness) of the Haze Wood that he and Hush that had resided in prior to their current home in the red tinged forest that they had currently taken up residence in. It was damp and densely populated with all manner of tangling grabbing green things. Stickers in his coat, twigs jabbing and catching, and forever his paws sliding in the muck as he squished unhappily along, ears pinned back for protection as he nosed his way through the underbrush.


The monotony of squelching paws and the dragging feeling of twigs and stickers in his coat was interrupted abruptly by the carrying shout of a young voice. Twisting around, ears released upward to catch further sound, he turned his head to and fro searching for the source of the call. For a moment he could hear nothing but the humming buzz of marsh bugs and the soft sounds of gently moving water. Then the sound movement drew his attention and he turned around in the mud and picked his way toward where the shuffling noise of little paws on soft ground came drifting to his ears from.


It took his eyes a long moment to pick out the small dark form of the pup who stood in defiance, head upturned toward the sky – apparently following up his threatening call to the celestial body above with a stern, hard eyed glare to prove that he meant business. Or, so imagined Jericho guessing on vague posture alone – as he could not actually make out the features of the youngster before him. Without any clear idea on what to say he simply chose to step forward, not bothering to be quiet. After a moment he wordlessly cleared his throat, loud enough – he hoped – to draw the pup's attention. He wasn't really sure he wanted to meet this boy, but it felt strange to have watched him and then simply fade off into the night.

Jericho's approach was met with the cry of the apparently pretty bold pup. From all of his shouted threats one would have thought he had to bite to back up his bark – perhaps someday he would but for now he was nothing but one lone cub on it's own (as far as Jericho's eyes could see anyway). Not feeling even remotely frightened he took a step closer, crossing into a pale beam of moonlight. Almost it seemed that he shifted from an intangible shadow to a solid form made of more than just dark spaces between pale dapples of moonlight.


“I should stay away or you'll...?” He murmured curiously, settling down onto his haunches to sit in a fashion that suggested leisure. Nothing about him implied threat nor did he seem as though he was going to become suddenly compelled to attack. Still, he did not offer the soothing words that most adults-mistaken-for-bad-guys might have. It didn't do for one so small to be alone and in a dark wood where he could actually run into a guy by far more bad than Jericho. Jericho supposed there wasn't much harm in giving the little guy a small scare to set him straight – not that he intended to do so personally, so much as he didn't feel the need to fall all over himself apologizing and reassuring.

Karpos's declaration that he would retrieve assistance to back him up from a plethora of wolves that Jericho assumed must be his pack made him rumble a small noise of disapproval. Pragmatically he pointed out, his tones even and without malice, “What if they aren't close enough and you can't reach them before I reach you, what do you do then?” This was a leading question, obviously – he was curious to see if this impulsive randomly met boy could think his way logically through the situation. It wasn't much about terrorizing the boy as it was an experiment based solely on impulsive curiosity of his own – he wouldn't harm the pup, he had no reason to nor the blackness of heart to desire inflicting harm on the innocent.

The once-again spoken demand that he reveal himself made him snort in disdain. “Use your senses instead to find me, the night shadows me but I am not hiding myself from you.” This command was spoken in a harder, sharper voice than he had previously – almost militant in design. He did not raise his voice to do so, there was no need to shout in order for his point to be made. More that he could not help but say such a serious thing without being stern by default and Jericho had never been one much for smothering his instincts.

Jericho wasn't convinced in the slightest that help would arrive to save the boy if he called out to them – at least, not in time to actually do anything about any evil intentioned wrong doer. He wondered at what point puppies picked up true logic rather than the instinctual reliance on family and pack to protect them. He wondered if this boy could really sense that he himself wasn't really evil and didn't truly intend to hurt him and thus he hadn't responded in a truly appropriate fashion. Running and hiding was the best thing a pup of his age out on his own, facing an unknown enemy could do. Not very courageous, but definitely the best option if he wanted to live on to see the next sunrise.

At Jericho's behest the boy paused to seek him out, taking his advice. A small smile touched his mouth, hidden by the shroud of shade around him. He didn't bother to keep his amusement hidden when the darkly colored pup realized he wasn't a ghost, simply a wolf by any other – while he didn't laugh his voice was touched by his smile. “True.” He replied, affirming that he was indeed real and amongst the living. “I'm as real and alive as you are.” There seemed to be very little else to say for the time being – he'd let the boy pick the pace they moved at. He himself viewed this meeting as of little consequence. With his life the way it was now there wasn't much for a puppy of any kind to offer him other than a casual meeting.

If Jericho had known the boy now considered him to be a friend it might have wrung out a laugh from him. There wasn't much of a basis for any kind of relationship between them aside from this chance meeting it would have seemed unlikely to him that they would ever run into one another again. As an adult he, of course, had very different ideas of what friendship was. However – the life of a cub was brief, hardly on this earth for a measurable amount of time it was probably true that puppies had to make what they could of their barely lived lives whenever they could. The truth was, Jericho didn't really make friends – he had a few as any wolf of his age was bound to – his companion Hush was the only one that remained in his life – the others (mostly members of Tartok) had faded from his life.

The pup's warning was taken – though he did not heed it much. He was full well capable of holding his own and while his nose told him that some small group of lone wolves camped here he doubted seriously that there were enough of them to truly threaten him. Still, he didn't openly discard the dark colored boy's warning and instead shrugged his dark shoulders responding in the same even keeled tones that he replied to almost everything with. “Jericho.” He murmured simply before getting up to go sliding smoothly off into the dark – near vanishing on silent paws. He paused, turning to glance over one raggedly torn shoulder to regard the boy who remained nameless to him with eyes made pale and near colorless by the moonlight. “Hey kid. Next time you run into a stranger? Don't seek him out. Run and hide, fast and quiet as you can. Not everyone is as soft hearted as me.” There was a lilting edge to his words on his last sentence, an implication of humor though it was hard to say what it was over. Having imparted these words he simply turned and departed without so much as a backward glance, vanishing into the dark as quickly as he'd appeared.