He’d been misplaced—carelessly lost out into the world like a kite without a string, drifting, drifting wherever the whim of the wind cast him. It wasn’t that he desired to be alone, but that fate had chosen another course for him that sent him immeasurably far from his origin. He’d been thrust from the pack that he’d called his family by the enigmatic, mysterious creatures always hidden behind steel and iron. He’d known it was them—their scent was foul, unmistakable. He couldn’t understand their motives or their purpose—he knew only instinct, and the way of the wild, even if he’d been born in a cage. They’d done well in convincing their animals that nothing was amiss, and that they could survive on their own, until the day he’d found himself thrown out into the forest with no way back to anything familiar. He’d coped though. He’d adapted, and he’d survived.

The winter was rough, and though he’d become thin beneath the heavy, plush coat that swathed his frame, he was little more than muscle and bone—all fat depleted between whatever scarce prey he could obtain on his own. A wolf without a pack was forced to struggle, though survival wasn’t impossible. Spring and summer would lessen the challenge, and he impatiently awaited the winter to break and fade away into green once again. The forest here was burned and blackened—a hollow, depressing sight—though buried beneath the flawless, white snow. The wind was the only sound, howling through what remained of the trees and stirring the snow up into mini cyclones around him. Blinking against the frigid wind, he snatched up a few mouthfuls of snow to sate his thirst before trudging silently onward.