The wolf moved with a look of determination in his stride, creamy pale limbs pulling him over countless miles under the light of the slivered moon. His mouth was held the slightest bit open, each breath coming in a pant, drawing the scents of the night in closer towards him. Somewhere the sweet scent of fruit drifted on the wind, and Albireo steered towards it with a grumble in his belly. Despite his outwardly determined appearance, Al was truly on a meandering course. Whatever it was he was looking for, he knew his old pack didn't have. Soon the open fields he trekked through became choked with thorned vines. Easily a bird could see the vibrant moonlit fruits tucked in the brush, but the wolf's monochrome sight had him searching with his nose, teeth picking off what little pieces of sweet sustenance he could find. He'd heard a story about a fox and sour grapes, and missing the moral he had to agree that the higher ones weren't worth the effort, and thusly must have tasted disgusting.

His traveling momentum had slowed, every so often Al pulled aside to pick the fruit from the branches. He would have continued on like this through the night had something else interesting not caught his senses. A wolf, young, and far enough from any pack for the border's scent to be undetectable from where he stood. He lifted his head, breathing deeper and still could smell no one else besides the cub. Other, older scents criss-crossed the field, and this place was decidedly more populated than where he had been traveling. Ducking his head back down he trudged onward, following the tendril of scent up a small knoll. Sure enough a dark boy was perched at its top. Al made a noise somewhere between a woof and a whine, a sort of questionless question to catch the boy's attention. Al drew closer, ignorant of the beautiful landscape the hill looked out upon and instead watching the cub through beady dark eyes. "Hey kid, what are you doing out here?" Albireo asked, his voice gruff and accusative. He didn't mean it to be, and his tone owed it's awkwardness to a lack of recent use. He didn't care enough to apologize though, and instead waited for a response from the cub with a pleasantly benign expression, tail lazy at his hocks.

The cub seemed to have not noticed Al's approach, something the wolf hadn't intended, hopping up and practically spinning to face the older wolf. The tired shake that rattled in the pup's limbs incited the instinct of chase in Albireo, as if the young wolf were no different to him than a squirrel darting into the brush. Al's weight shifted forwards in anticipation before he settled back into a neutral balance, all fours held firmly on the ground. The boy wasn't going to run, so there wouldn't be anything to chase. Instead, he listened, nearly forgetting he had asked anything until his mind reeled back into the present reality. He stared blankly at the boy until he remembered his question, almost looking as if he wouldn't respond at all.

"You ran?" Albireo finally asked. His dull brown eyes skimmed beyond the hill, not seeing anything to run from. "From what? Nothing is here," His leathery black nostrils flared as he breathed, nope, nothing. "So it must be gone now. Where is it? What was it?" Again Albireo started to lean forward, an unfitting intensity sparking in his oddly plain eyes. His voice was curious, pressing, aggressive all at once. He couldn't help it now, and he started walking closer to the black scrap of a wolf until he stopped, seemingly reaching the end of an invisible leash with an abrupt jerk, several feet from the cub. Al offered no explanation for his behavior, but this time his stare seemed to say he hadn't forgotten his own question this time.

The boy answered him, not only in word but in deed to the unasked question of his bluff. Unbudging, not prey and deserving of some shred of caution. Al knew the young wolf would hold little experience, but even then the boy knew enough to stand his ground, perhaps even fight back if pressed.

The cub elaborated, what he had run away from was a place, rather than thing. Home, specifically, which was still a nebulous concept for Albireo. A place with warm bodies to sleep beside, at the least, and Al had fled just the same as a hare from a lynx, or a Boy from Home. A smile slowly crawled up the edges of Albireo's black lips, a sort of greasy, alien expression that seemed to be on the brink of slipping off his face.

"Me too. There is no home now, for me. For you? Will you go back? Is there even anything left to go back to?" By now the smile had vanished, it's maintenance forgotten. It left nothing behind but his blank stare, a canvas scraped clean. Albireo shuddered, backing up a step, head starting to duck before the unseen chain yanked in reverse, holding him from any sort of retreat. His eyes, which had been wandering, snapped up and locked on the bright orange of the boy's, but Al didn't move any closer. Like a flag, his chalky tail furled outward and level with his spine. His stomach burned, sour grapes or shame, did this cub think he could just chase him off like that?