His paws crunched in the snow, and this time he didn't pay any attention to them. Instead he was stubbornly ignoring them. And maybe he was becoming almost hyper-aware of what each sound his clumsy body was making, but he tried his best to ignore that too. It was zoning out that had gotten him into trouble last time, and he was going to do everything he could to make sure it would never happen again.

He stomped forward through the fog, closer towards the silhouette of a tree. Distantly he could remember there being a weird pond-river thing by it. He just had to cross it to get back to where he saw Victoria and Avery days before. His pace picked up, because Vic was good at figuring out stuff that he didn't want to. And Avery - well, Cottongrass always got the feeling that he and the smaller male were more alike than anyone would ever think. They both panicked, a lot. Except he wouldn't admit that to anyone ever.

The ice was right there, coming into view and his spirits were brightening for one tentative moment. Except his paws didn't even each the ice before he fell. It happened in the blink of an eye - one second he was shuffling forward and the next he was down in the snow. Whatever fragile dam of hope that was keeping his emotions in check broke, right then and there.

His encounter with Rigel was wrong. Leaving Vic and Avery even for a little bit was wrong. And Cottongrass - he was the wrongest of them all. He didn't move from his position on the bank near the twisted tree. Instead he just sulked. Nobody was even around to pity him, and he'd probably have to shuffle all the way back just to get his well-deserved sympathy.

The east was his new worst place.

Was he alright?

His instinctive response was to say yes, and immediately figure out a way so he could waddle away with as little awkwardness as possible. But the rest of him - the rest of him was nothing but a puppy in the body of a big wolf. And the puppy inside of him wanted all of the attention, and all of the sympathy. As much as it as possible, preferably, because his daily dose of pity was sorely lacking. He'd have to get what he could from whoever had found him.

"No." He mumbled, slowly pushing himself to his haunches. Should he tell them? He felt like he should tell them, at least a little bit so that way he'd see if they were even really that interested. Because he was very picky about the attention he got, and it had to be genuine or else it wouldn't even matter. He didn't want another Rigel. His ears rolled back against his head and he gave a soft frown as he thought about it.

"I think I messed up." He mumbled again, yellow eyes drawing up to meet the gaze of the male's. If they wanted to hear more he was fully ready to ramble and let everything out. Because boy oh boy, there was a lot for him to tell and a whole lot of emotion he wanted gone.

His ears heard the sigh, but his brain zoomed in on the go ahead to ramble that was phrased as a question. He perked up immediately, eyes following the wolf as they sat down near him. His ears flicked forward and he leaned slightly towards them. Because this stranger was making his day better already. Behind him his tail thumped, not quite a wag but getting there.

"Well," he drew in a shaky breath as he struggled to order his thoughts, "I met this uh, wolf, somewhere east." His words were accompanied with a vague pointing of his muzzle to an area he could only guess was east. He looked down at his paws as he remembered the rest of what had exactly happened. And he wasn't enjoying it, if his wince was anything to go by.

"I - they - I dunno. They treated me as if there was something, uh, wrong with me." He stammered out, ears rolling back against his skull. Because he had said he was okay, but the questions just kept coming and he didn't like that. Not one bit. "They asked a lot of questions, and I guess - I guess I answered 'em wrong." He mumbled, watching his white paws fidget in the snow.

"I think they hate me now." His words were barely a whisper, and this time he looked up to meet the older wolf's gaze. That's the part that hurt him the most. Just the sheer hostility and awkwardness that had lingered in the air, the way he felt on edge. The tension, the stress. He just wanted Rigel to like him, but he did something wrong and it all went south from there on out. It was his fault, surely. But he hoped there was a way to fix his guilty conscience and what had happened. He didn't like feeling like he had enemies.

While he didn't get a moment to acknowledge their comment, it wouldn't go by unforgotten. Because they - they didn't see anything wrong with him. And maybe it didn't mean all that much, but he couldn't help the brief smile the lit up his face. Even if it disappeared behind a deep frown moments later.

"They asked me if I was alright, and if I needed help." He started off slowly, puzzling the pieces together because he was going to do this right. "Then they started to ask if I was traveling with anyone, where they were, and what we were all doing." His frown deepened the more he thought about it. Because somehow everything would be flipped back onto him the moment he said the next part. There was a brief thought where he considered leaving it out, pretending it was all in his head and he was being a big baby. But he wanted someone else to know. He didn't want it to be all in the air, an ambiguous mess of feelings that hurt him when he thought about what had happened.

"I don't think so." The words came carefully from his mouth, unsure and oh so terrified of what the other wolf might say. Because he didn't think he did anything drastic to annoy Rigel. Or maybe he did, he didn't know anymore. "I answered all of the questions they asked me. but it felt like they were trying to poke around in my head for something."

He tried to give Rigel the right answers, he really did. But without any clues and just cloudy words to go off of - he didn't think he did too good of a job. So he told the stranger that.

"I tried to give them the right answers they wanted, but I don't - I don't think I had the ones they wanted from me." He wondered if this stranger could imagine the anguish he felt. Hitting and missing in the dark, unable to find the right words that would just fix everything. Except it all just seemed to do the opposite of what he wanted his words to do.

"I dunno. I offered to leave a bunch, but they kept saying I should sit down with them and rest in their den. Or have something to eat. It's like they thought I was gonna somehow be dangerous to them, or myself, or others." His jaw struggled to work for his next sentence. "It's like they could barely stand me so I tried to leave, but they wanted me to - they wanted me to stay around." Everything there felt like one great big humbuggery¹.

¹+5 for WoTD.

All of his thoughts stuttered to a halt. Because he - he never thought about that before! Even if there was doubt wiggling about in the back of his mind, whispering that Rigel said he was traveling with a friend. And a friend didn't mean more than one, or so Cottongrass had always thought. There was also the fact that Rigel only brought up Maera, and how she was always nearby. That didn't sound like a pack, but it might've been one looking to start. His tail thumped and he sat up straighter.

"I never thought of that." He admitted, honestly. And there was a whole lot of doubt that didn't let him believe in that line of thinking, but what did he know. Besides - his heart and brain always took the easy way out of things. Like when hunting prey that was faster than him, the kind that was twitchy and paranoid. Instead of waiting he always preferred to just trample forward and hope for the best. (And maybe that's why his parents didn't take him on pack hunts that much...)

As much as the idea of ever meeting Rigel again unnerved him, he had to admit that the idea of it was starting to look less grim. Because if it was one great big misunderstanding - that was something he could deal with. He liked the idea of setting things right, all civil and adult-like. His crisis was averted! If he ever bumped into Rigel, he'd have to ask and maybe then everything wouldn't make him feel so guilty about that day. He smiled, jaws falling open and tongue lolling out.

"Rigel." He chirped, giving himself a quick nod. "Their name was Rigel." And without missing a beat - he went ahead and introduced himself. "And my name's Cottongrass." He gave the larger male an almost expectant stare, because friends knew each others names. The good friends, at least.