Hudson had been fast asleep, more pleasant dreams dancing through his head compared to his companion’s nightmares. He’d flickered in and out of consciousness as the vague movements she made in her fitful rest, but it wasn’t until he felt the chill bite at his side where her body had been that he actually awoke. He shivered, silver gaze blinking open sleepily as he raised his head, half the fur on his face flattened and snow clinging to it from where it had been laying. The man looked around for her, squinting against the cold until he saw her pale frame silhouetted against the vague moonlight.

He got to his paws with a yawn, walking blearily over to her until his side was pressed up against hers once more. “ ‘ts fuckin’ freezing,” he muttered, another shiver running down his spine. Ancestors, he hated winter. The smell of smoke finally registered in his senses and he looked up to the sky, a haze cloaking the air and making the stars blurry. He mentally sent up well-wishes to his ancestors. “Half tempted to follow wherever that’s coming from. A brushfire would probably feel better than this bullshit,” he said raspily, still partially in the clutches of rest.

She mentioned that she didn’t mean to wake him and he shrugged, because what did it matter? He was awake anyways, so might as well join her. Ever since agreeing to join each other, the pair hardly separated. They would sometimes split during the day to sniff around and do their business, but they never failed to meet up back at their tree to snuggle up for the night. Really, the weather warranted it, or that was what he told himself. He didn’t deny that he might have had a little boy crush on the woman, because really, what wasn’t there to like? She matched his sass and banter but was also content to simply share space, she didn’t take his upfront attitude to heart and, the cherry on top, she was heckin pretty. Yeah, Huds had done good.

“Damn, foiled my plans of escape,” he said with a sly grin, his hueless gaze sweeping over to her for a moment before looking back up to the sky. “What woke ya up anyways? Normally ya sleep like the dead,” he teased, though underlying it was a genuine question.

She responded with the sass that he’d expected, implying that he’d miss her if he up and left and honestly, he probably. Not in any soul aching way, but in the way that someone misses a good friend and the memories they shared. He already felt like he was slipping into a routine with her and he wasn’t sure what to do about that. “Maybe, maybe not,” he grunted, trying to feign indifference but the small curl at the corner of his lips betrayed him.

Another little quip was given, but soon after she grew a little more serious and he angled and ear toward her as she spoke. For all intents and purposes what she was saying made sense, so he believed her. Wolves had an instinctual aversion to fire, one of the things known to be the most destructive and the hardest to control. It devoured everything in its wake and scarcely left anything behind. It was a monster all on its own. “We’re probably fine here. Sure, the trees are dry, but I feel like there’s too much snow for it to make it all the way and not put itself out. Not that I’ve ever been in a forest fire, just makes sense,” after all, snow was water and water was the enemy of fire.

Silence hung between the pair for a moment, snow crunching beneath the woman’s pale paws as she shifted in place. Hudson’s pale gaze scanned the area around them, checking for signs of movement while he waited for her to consider her response. When she spoke, it was to agree with his statement about the fire while also tell him a tale of her own. Apparently her great-grandfather had been orphaned to a forest fire. Man, that sucked. He didn’t even want to think about what it would be like to burn alive in such a thing, to live your last moments in unbearable agony. Man, he hoped he went in his sleep.

There was one thing he caught on to, however, other than her story. She used the term Gods, as in plural, and she’d used it before as well. He found himself curious about what she was referring to when she said that. “Watcha mean by ‘th' Gods’?” he asked.

It was clear that she was carefully considering how to explain what she meant by her words, though he couldn’t tell if she was worried that he’d think or strange or if it was just a complicated subject matter. He chose to believe the latter because one’s belief systems were usually never just ‘simple’, they were a complicated, interwoven mesh of who that wolf was and what their surroundings were. His dark auds perked as she spoke, explaining that they were old, nameless gods of specific countenance, taught to her by her mother and her mother before her. That was, after all, how such things came to be. He’d never heard of such things where he came from. His mother had no belief system at all and the Ancestors had been taught to him by his father and grandparents.

“Do your Gods speak to you? My family doesn’t believe in Gods, but we listen to our Ancestors. Nobody is really dead after they’re gone, their spirit just goes to join the After, then depending on their achievements from their past life they may be reincarnated. Our Ancestors aren’t able to speak to all, only those who are greatly sensitive to their energies, but they guide and protect us,” he explained, looking up to the stars above once again.