Rind.

Gus, who had been quietly carving dirty pictures into bars of soap by a pit fire, looked up and shook his head, then met Kellan's eyes. The wolfe looked over at the Layer and called his name.
"Adotre."
The Layer froze and turned immediately towards the wolfe's voice. Kellan looked at him, gently.
"You will be fine."
Adotre looked first at Kellan, then at Gustin. Then he went back to pacing.

~:~
It was nearing dusk when they heard the first signs of an approach. Adotre had been pacing the entryway for almost an hour. Kellan and Gustin, working on wood carving and soap-sorting respectively, had politely ignored him the entire time. But suddenly, as they were waiting for the evening meal to warm over the cooking fire, Kellan jerked up his head as if scenting the wind, and then just as suddenly, put it back down. The attention shift was brief enough that Gustin almost missed the clue; Adotre was not so oblivious. He lifted his head and perked his ears forward, clearly straining to make out the sounds.
"Is it him?!"
Gus, who had been quietly carving dirty pictures into bars of soap by one of the smaller pit fires, exchanged looks with his wolfe.
"Perhaps. Calm yourself. There is some distance yet."
Adotre, expectedly, did not calm himself, but rather began to breathe in a rapid ascent towards hyperventilation, all the while making a weird keening sound under his breath. Gustin put down his pornographic soap and went over to him.
The human put one hand on the Layer's shoulder, then reached up to rub gently behind the ear that Adotre usually scratched in anxiety.
"Hey. Listen. You will be fine."
Adotre looked first at Kellan, then at Gustin. Then he went back to pacing.

~:~

It took Iorir another twelve minutes to arrive. The knock at the door startled all of them - Adotre's anxiety had become both palpable and contagious. Kellan grunted and stood up to go to the door.
Adotre put his tail between his legs, then lifted it, then ran across the room, came back, turned in a circle, half-shifted before he caught himself and went back, and was only finally calmed by Gustin's two firm hands setting down on his shoulder.
"Sit."
Adotre sat. Gustin shoved a blank bar of soap into his hands.
"Carve."
Adotre stared dumbly at it. Gustin prodded him with a small tool.
"Carve. It will calm you. And make you look industrious. Here."
Adotre took the tool and began whittling away at the soap in no order in particular, his eyes still firmly on the door across the room which his Airu was preparing now to open.
It seemed to take forever; the door slid slowly on its bearings, and Kellan grunted a little with the effort of opening it.
But then the wind gushed in and the sunlight shielded his face, but there was he - the one, the mate, the exiled warrior, Adotre's own little wolfish prince. He was wearing travel clothes, gray and white to blend in, and Adotre processed idly that the addition of gray must mean that the snow was getting patchier. Spring would come very soon. Iorir and Kellan worked together to close the door, shut out the cold. Gustin looked over at the pits. Two fires would have to be relit. Adotre's tail, usually so upright, was tucked low against his thigh, no thumping of it evident.

Then the wolfe at the door shook himself, smiled, and pushed back his hood. He was fair - more than fair, Gus corrected. Handsomer than Kellan, truth told, but not nearly so attractive - at least not to Gus. Where Kellan had brute strength in his shoulders that spoke of constant use, Iorir was slimmer, angular. Where Kellan had dark hair, Iorir had silver - a color Gus had never seen before on a wolfe, and made a mental note to ask about as soon as it was comfortable. He had the same brown eyes as Kellan, the same smoothness of skin and sharpness of jaw, but where Kellan's expression was serious, firm - leaderly, Gustin liked to call it - Iorir's looked more like that of a prankster. No wonder he and Adotre got along.

Kellan walked farther into the room, Iorir trailing some distance behind.
"Mate. I present to you: Iorir. Wolfe of the Irion, trader and healer. He comes seeking Adotre's bond."
Iorir, studiously ignoring the Layer, bowed slightly and reached out one hand to Gustin. Gus took it, shook it, and inclined his head - as much of a bow as he could manage from the floor. Before he straightened back up, Iorir caught sight of one of Gus' particularly graphic soaps that had been cast aside for morphological inaccuracy, and raised an eyebrow. Then, glancing furtively at Adotre, he grinned.
Gus was glad Adotre was already too busy studiously ignoring Iorir himself, or he guessed the nervous Layer would have passed out from embarrassment.
"It is a pleasure to meet the one who has done so well as to grace the honorable Wolfe Kuskellanar with his bonding. I wish you much success in your bond and mating."
Iorir's eyes sparkled a bit as he said the last bit, and he smiled, looking directly into Gustin's face. Gus understood immediately what Kellan had not liked about this wolfe. He was too forward, too brash, too damn smiley for an old wolfe like Kellan's liking. But it seemed like that was just a difference of age and upbringing. As long as he was faithful, and as long as he would provide, Gus decided that Iorir might be the perfect type of wolfe for Adotre.
By now the wolfe had moved on, and was standing straight up, looking expectantly at Kellanar. Gus wondered what for, but then his wolfe grunted and indicated the Layer with one hand.
"You may greet Adotre."
Adotre, who had been working very hard to appear to not be listening, pricked his ears up at that, put down his soap (rubbing sweaty palms on his shirt), and turned slowly to Iorir. The wolfe was staring down at him, the smile gone from his face and an intensity in his gaze that Adotre had not been the subject of before.
"Hello, Adotre." he said.
Adotre coughed a little and picked a flake of soap off the floor.
"Hi."
There was a moment of silence which stretched just long enough to be uncomfortable, and so Gustin leapt in and offered that the stew had probably gotten plenty warm by now, so why didn't they all take places at the table?

~:~

After dinner (of which Gus had two helpings), they sat up together a while, talking about the caravan.
"Whence does it come?" Kellan asked gruffly, chewing distractedly on a leftover piece of bone. Iorir watched him, sitting on a pile of furs. Adotre sat on the floor beside him, but neither of them looked on the other. Gus figured it must be some sort of strange decency thing. Iorir, taking his own bone out of his mouth, grunted. Gus wondered just how wolfes had managed to develop complex language with all the damn grunting they did to communicate.
"The east. Up from south, of course. Crossing Big River before the first thaw."
This vague description appeared to mean something to Kellan, because he sat up a little straighter and chewed his bone a little harder.
"Soon."
Iorir nodded.
"Soon."
"You will trade?"
Iorir nodded again. Kellan grunted.
"I plan to leave soon. I will seek reinstatement in my pack on Arem'mir. My mate will journey with me to do so. If I fail..." Kellan trailed off for a moment, as if uncomfortable considering his own possible defeat. "My mate must have a safe place to birth."
Iorir looked over at Gustin.
"My home is always open for family and those of our kind."
Which kind? Gustin wondered but instead licked the bottom of his second bowl of soup. Maybe he should get a third.
Iorir's answer seemed to soothe something in Kellan, because he loosened his vice grip on the bone and gazed off thoughtfully.
"You will care closely for my only Nemel."
Iorir looked a litle taken aback.
"He will be my mate. I love him. Of course I will care closely for him."
Adotre, losing all pretense, grinned adoringly up at Iorir, thrilled with this profession. Kuskellan gave the Layer a firm stare, and Adotre's eyes went back to anyplace-but-at-Iorir. Gustin took some amusement from that.
Iorir was frowning now; Kuskellanar noticed.
"You have worries, wolfe?" his voice was inquisitive, but not unthreatening.
Iorir held up both hands.
"Not on my mate. On your journey, my alpha." Kellan blinked at him. Iorir furrowed his brow even further. "I think I know the wolfe you need to seek."
Kellan's blank expression flashed interest, then returned to blank.
"Who?"
"The court interface. He brings the laws from Arem'mir. He hears cases. He may be your best way back to the Old World."
Kellan grunted.
"He is loyal?"
Iorir nodded.
"Loyal."
"Where can I find him?"
"At the Fourth Point."
This captured Gustin's interest. He had never heard the wolfe speak of such wolfish things before - his stories were always lessons of achievement, literature, culture. The Points of Contact were not in them. They were the places where the wolfes had first set down when they had arrived on Earth; the first places where they had appeared and howled and made their presence known. Those were the old days, Gustin knew, when to fuck a mate was to have one. Terrible things had happened at the first seven points. And in the end, it had taken seven - seven, and almost eight - years of work before the old way of taking mates had been completely abolished. Not forgotten, mind, but abolished nonetheless.
Gus looked over at his wolfe husband. Kellan was chewing the end of his bone.
"The point may be difficult to reach in this weather."
Iorir tilted his head.
"I agree. Wait."
Kuskellanar shook his head.
"No. We cannot wait."
Iorir's eyes narrowed, for just a fraction of a second, and he spared a nanomoment's glance to look at Gustin.
"Why not?" he aked Kuskellanar, slowly. A man who did not know Kuskellanar would have seen a perfectly calm, rational wolfe answer Iorir's question. A man who did know the wolfe, such as Gustin was, knew immediately how startled he was. The two wolfes faced off there, in the quiet, both of them waiting, for a long moment. Adotre bit at his fingernails and secretly sat so his shoulder would be touching Iorir. The standoff continued. Kellan spoke.
"My mate is carrying with difficulty. I fear the stress of travel may be too much to bear within weeks. If he or the litter's life is in danger, then we must move."
Luckily, Iorir seemed to accept this.
They spoke a while longer on the possibility of trade, the preparations to make for birth and litter, and the good fortune the moon had granted them with to give them both such fetching mates.
Then, they had gotten ready to go to bed.

For bedtime, Adotre made his way over to his pile of cloth and began preparing to lay down. The wolfe Iorir sat up in his makeshift bed closer to the fires.
"No."
Adotre looked up at him, confused. Iorir lifted one corner of the sewn-together fur blanket.
"Come. You are my mate. You sleep here."
Adotre froze, looking from Iorir to Kuskellanar, who was watching them from his own bed. Kellan inclined his head.
"He is your wolfe, Adotre. Perhaps you should at least pretend to obey him."
Adotre blinked rapidly at his Airu, then glanced down at himself. Kellan shook his head.
"He will not harm you, Layer. Nor will he ignore my authority. Iorir will behave."
The last statement was innocuous enough to be taken as an assurance, yet when Iorir met Kellan's eyes, the wolfe's expression conveyed immediately that it was, in fact, a command. Iorir lowered his eyes in submission and Kellan, satisfied, rolled back over in his bed. Adotre hesitated one more minute, then acquiesced, weaving his way between the fire pits to his fiancé's bed. He settled in nervously, some distance from Iorir, who laughed, reached one arm out, and drew Adotre into him. There, the Layer laid still, held snugly in his new wolfe's arms. After a minute, he lifted his head, checked that Kellan had well and truly gone to sleep, then craned his neck upwards and kissed Iorir. The wolfe smiled and kissed him back, thoroughly, at which point Adotre pulled away, intimidated by his own forthrightness. Iorir held him the rest of the night, cuddling him into a peaceful sleep.

~:~