---

---

for Laurel and/or Magnolia

Newcomers to Sanguine were worth note. Worth investigation, too, for Silver was nothing if not thorough. There would be nothing that slipped past his cunning eyes and ears, not when his survival here depended on maximizing the personal profit the silver can squeeze from all the sorry souls Joxer drags into his orbit. The greater their numbers, the safer Silver is. He has a vested interest in ensuring healthy growth.

From what he hears, though, these two new wolves are young. Dumb kids in over their heads, he figures. Unfortunate. Not his problem, either. But they might have a hard time adjusting to the desert's extremes. Silver clutches a hare in his jaws as the world glows orange in the light of the setting sun. It burns on the horizon like a single amber eye, alight with all-consuming greed. Silver turns his back to it, follows the scent of the new wolves until it overwhelms the scent of the hare's blood.

He halts, chuffs sharply to summon them from whatever rocky outcropping they're lurking behind. Silver paints his posture and voice in varying shades of strict neutrality - not yet decided what he wants to portray to the strangers.

---

A bark drawls through the heated evening air, but no attentive children appear to snap the meal from Silver's jaws like the starving little sharks he knows children to be.

Huh.

Well, alright. Guess this rabbit's for me, then. He shakes the carcass until some tendon or bone makes a loud snapping noise, as if he was butchering the hare to eat. Silver sank onto his haunches, flicked his tail to drape over a rock, and waited. Either he'd be ignored and would move on with his day, or some upstart brat would come scampering out of one of these rocky outcroppings.

---

The girl is a striking creature, asymmetrical and bright like a bird. She snaps at Silver about freaks in a cage and his muzzle twitches in reply. He manages not to snap that she wouldn't know bars if she were biting them, and the limp in her gait and wary stiffness to her posture quells any further idea he has that she isn't already aware that she's in far too deep already.

Anything would be a better use of my time than feeding a snarky brat. Silver sneers back, and flings the rabbit at the girl's peach-colored paws. He settled, then, straightened slightly and smoothed his fur. I thought it'd be prudent to meet the newest recruits. A wave of his paw at the girl's face peering through the gloom. A welcome party, if belated and lackluster.