Cherrybloom

"Yes, honey, it's called a dust bath." Cherrybloom smiles in amusement. "You get used to it when the earth's drier than a rattlesnake's ass."

The wolf sighs whimsically and looks up at the assorted wolves. A very large pack for its age, the wolves had obviously been fattened up on the bounty of game and water in the deciduous forest, and save for the lieutenant huntress Rosemary, scarcely a wolf among them looked like they'd ever seen sand before. Seeing one of the adolescents sniffing a fruit, her old pupsitting instincts kick in, and she rolls her eyes good naturedly as she approaches. "What? You ain't never seen a prickly pear before?" she asks. "I wouldn't bite that if I were you. Here, let me show you how to prepare it..."

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Like a number of Scarborough's wolves, Cherrybloom was taken in to avoid overcrowding in another pack. Though the whimsical wolves of her old pack lived in the mountains, the woman had been taken to the lands of her heritage repeatedly by her parents, and when word got out that Scarborough was moving to the desert - something about a rival pack, a contested line of succession, blah blah blah - she was happy to join. The desert was harsh, but pleasant to those who knew her. She named a price for her services that would be a boon to her kin, bid them farewell, and set out with Scarborough into the desert.

Also, spirits above, this pack would not survive without someone to whack them upside the heads and tell them not to gnaw on cactuses. Speaking of which, their spirit worship was quite something else, and the dances they did at sunset were - honestly kind of embarrassing, but the passion was admirable. Idly, Cherrybloom wondered whether they might start to feel Coyote's influence here in the badlands. Her grandmother had. For spiritually attuned wolves like them, it was, Cherryblossom figured, only a matter of time...