Snowmelt

II

I look out my den's entrance, watching the full range of colors spreading across the dawning sky. I watch as the fiery reds, molten yellows, golden oranges, delicate pink, deep blue and pale violet meld together to become something that doesn't seem like it should be real, but life wouldn't be the same without it. I look down at my paws, normally as white as snow, just like the rest of my pelt, now tinted with every color both in the sky and out of it.

I stretch my legs, one by one, as I recount the events of the previous day. "Still feels as weird as it did yesterday. I should probably go back... I don't want him to find out more about me than necessary." I mutter to myself.

I make my way to the area I had seen the inky wolf the previous day, staying just a bit further away from the pack's territory than I had the day before.

I sit, ready to wait for a while due to the other wolf's vague at best question. Just as my interior monologue finishes its first bought of complaints, I see movement in the shadows. I stand, ears forward, nose trying to catch the newcomer's scent, fur on end. Just as I recognize the scent, out steps the wolf I had been waiting for. 

"Hello again," he says, tail wagging once. 

 He does that a lot, doesn't he?

"Took ya long enough..." I mutter under my breath. "Hello to you too. Now can we get this over with?" I add, raising my voice so that he can hear me.

He nods curtly, then sits back on his haunches, moving neither forward nor backward. I do the same. 

"What do you want to know? Good luck offending me, by the way." I growl, not bothering to take the hostility out of my voice. 

"What is your name?" he asks, calm and collected as ever.

"My name?" I repeat, confused. That's what you want to ask? Well fine then. Let's dance. 

"I don't have one."

He nods once before stating what he seems to see as an obvious follow-up question. "Why not? Don't you want one?" 

I shrug, unconcerned. "I've never had the need for one, and I don't feel like I will in the future. If I do, I'll come up with a name." 

"But that isn't how names work! Nobody should live without a name! You know what? I think I'll give you one!" He jumps up, obviously committed to giving me a name.

"Fine. What do you think my name should be?" I reply, feeling partially snarky, but still legitimately curious. 

One word falls from his mouth, the exact instant I finish my sentence.

Snowfall.

I feel as though the word reaches into me, grabs onto a part of me I had never realized was there, then jerks it out, back the way it came, taking the piece with it, but eventually returning to fill the gap that was left in its wake. I feel as though a weight lifted off my shoulders, a weight I had never noticed because it had been there as long as I can remember.

I shake out my pelt slightly before nodding. 

"Snowfall... I like it."

He grins, and I do the same. Without the weight of namelessness, his happiness is contagious. His grin widens -which I feel should have been impossible, as it was already impossibly wide-when he sees my face. 

"You still haven't told me yours," I state matter-of-factly, the grin on my face replaced with a more curious smirk. 

"Firetrail. My name is Firetrail, Snowfall." he responds, nodding once, then a second time.