When a pitiable sub-dragon and a lone werewolf met each other in the woods, the wolf's tail began to wag at the prospect of a new friend.

"Crap. Sometimes I think I should rip this thing off." The lycan grabbed his tail and stuck it under one foot to keep it in place.

A remark like that—not even about him—still stung. Cholryss only wished that his true form had not been ripped away from him.

"You seem gloomy, my shifter friend," the lycan said.

"Probably because I am. Look, 'friend', could you just leave me alone if you're not going to kill me?"

"No can do! As I said, I can't remember the last time I met somebody else. Then again," the lycan said, tapping his chin once more, "I might have eaten them." He bounded back over to Cholryss and sat at his side, slinging an arm over his shoulders. "But now I have you!"

"Fine. I guess I can hang around you for a bit, friend," Cholryss said with a gleam in his eyes.

"Hooray!" The lycan bounded up from enthusiasm, and his bushy tail started to wag uncontrollably once more.

"So… when do you eat me?" Cholryss asked, waving his hand around in the air. It felt weird asking a teenage boy younger than himself to kill him and eat him. In all seriousness, Cholryss did not want his body desecrated. Then again, it was not like he would be deserving a proper dragon funeral anyway.

"Lucky for you, I just ate! I wouldn't have put up with your mopey attitude this long on an empty stomach."

"Fine. Whatever. If you're not gonna kill me, we're not friends." Cholryss got up and brushed off his pants. "I'm going home."

The lycan jumped up and followed him in an easy stride.

Though Cholryss allowed this for several feet, the skipping tromps of the overly excited lycan soon got on his nerves. He spun around and spit harshly, "Stop following me."

"Actually, I was thinking that you could take me home." This shameless dog poked his clawed fingers together and lowered his ears, as if that would make him look more innocent and endearing or something. His big eyes wavered with a great deal of hope to them.

"You're not a lost puppy," Cholryss snapped. "Go home."

"But I kind of am," the lycan said. "Do you know what's been happening to the lycan tribes lately?"

"Don't know. Don't care." That was a lie, or at least the first half of it was.

Cholryss indeed understood how the lycan tribes were being subject to much of the same struggles as his own clan. The modern world hated the shifters and wanted to drive them all to extinction. Alas, he could not care less about a lone wolf's plight. Taking him back to the Iskantar clan of dragons, also on its last legs, would do nothing meaningful for the lycan.

"Please? I don't want to be an omega. My looks fit the bill but not my personality. Other omegas scare me, you know. It's only the scary omegas left out here!"

Beyond the alpha pack leader, Cholryss did not know much about the structure of the wolf tribes. Nor did he take interest in the dying culture. He kept walking.

"Ah, I see!" the lycan boy proclaimed. "You're a dragon shifter, aren't you? That's why you're so haughty!"

For a reply, Cholryss shot him a livid glare. "If I were a dragon shifter, don't you think I would have taught you a lesson by now?"

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The lycan puffed up his chest and said with extra emphasis, "If you weren't, don't you think I would've taught you a lesson by now?"

A huffing sigh left his lips, and Cholryss continued to march towards home. He trekked up the mountain path forged in an era where the dragons used to have tribute paid to them like gods. Those days were long gone. There was no path. Cholryss simply hiked up the mountain.

"My name's Katjak," the wolf boy said.

"Huh? Why is your name Cat? I thought you hated cats."

The lycan bristled at the joke, sending a growl through his barred teeth. "I said my name is Katjak. Don't call me anything else."

Ignoring him, Cholryss continued, "Don't lycans give each other names like Howling Wolf or some such?"

Unfortunately for him, Katjak's tail started to wag again at the recognition. "Just when we're pups, and they're a bit better than that. I was Marked Fang. See? Look at my teeth? My parents were super happy with my wolfish appearance when I was born, but according to my parents, I bit my mom a lot. She has lots of scars on her hands from trying to deal with me!"

Originally, Katjak's tone started out cheerful, but his speech slowly dragged out until he looked visibly upset.

"What happened to her?" Even though Cholryss did not particularly care to ask, he figured that he might as well listen to the lycan's sob story as if he did not already have his own.

"She left for the city, just like everybody else in my tribe. I'm the only one left! It's been pretty boring and sad and lonely these days, but I'm doing alright!" When Katjak said this, he seemed to be trying to convince himself more than Cholryss. The massive, phony smile was painful to look at. "I'm definitely doing alright."

After reaffirming this, Katjak leaped into more one-wayed conversation about his name. "When we turn fifteen years old, we have our naming ceremony—something which has a deeper meaning to follow us in adulthood. Katjak means 'cheerful like a pup' if you can't tell why I was given that name!" The wide, toothy grin seemed more genuine now.

The boy should be happy. He has it easy. He thinks he endured hardship but doesn't even know the meaning of the word. Cholryss's feet slowed in his rumination, dragging along as he gave the teenage lycan a new chance of consideration. One year ago, he had been separated from his clan much like how Katjak's entire clan left him behind. Even though Cholryss had been the one taken to Grandesia, much of the same feelings probably applied.

"We're both outcasts." Cholryss stated.

"Oh…. Are you a wanderer too?"

"No." His gaze cast up to the trees, watching the sunlight shift between the branches overhead. Cholryss's thoughts were still on the previous topic, so he asked aloud, "Why do the lycans willingly go where they're hated?"

"Well, it's just, opportunities are better. Higher quality of life and all that." Katjak's ears lay flat across his head as he spoke, fidgeting with his claws. "There's medicine to keep involuntary shifting at bay. Then, we can use modern hospitals and buy all sorts of fancy food and sleep in homes that are warmer than our fur in the winter. All sorts of reasons to move, I guess."

"Why didn't you go with them?"

"Well, this is the closest thing to a human form that I've got…." The reason Katjak had stayed behind was evident across his whole body. The ears, the tail, the claws, even his fangs would all have to come off if he wanted to pass as a normal human in the city.

For the lycan, his true form left him estranged while Cholryss had his form stripped from him. Even in his clan, a sub-dragon was little more than an outcast. Resentment boiled within him. At the very least, if Cholryss would be an outcast, he wanted his body intact like Katjak. The mongrel did not even know how lucky he was.

Nevertheless, Cholryss gave a big sigh and caved to those sad eyes. "I live with the Iskantar Clan of dragons. Would you like to meet my mom? If she accepts you, I suppose you can stay with us."

Katjak's ears flicked and his tail set to wagging its fiercest. The wolf boy did not even try to contain his excitement anymore. "Yes! Oh, yes! I'd love to go to your tribe. Can I really?"

"Yeah. Fine." His dwindling clan might as well become a band of misfits, given how a sub-dragon already lived amongst them. Cholryss could imagine exactly what would happen when he dragged in an outsider, especially a lone wolf like this. His mother would let him keep the wolf boy as a pet, only because he had nothing else to do in his life.

No one in the clan would say a word about it, but they would whisper in private. Everyone was concerned for Cholryss—a shell of the man he once was. All would look on at him with pity in their eyes. It had been such a shame when he had returned from Grandesia alive, he wondered why he had even bothered fighting to come back home at all.

Now, he had a childish lycan skipping behind him, and Cholryss had no idea why his life had to turn out like this. Maybe if a smidgen of his happiness can wear off on me…. Maybe it won't be so bad!