( WITH MY DARLING : JOININGish? )

[WANDERER]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]/ the first paragraph can be entirely ignored lmao and long story short he's trespassing after helping bandage a random npc's wounds

Surprise of all surprises, he hadn't stayed in The Typhoon. A greeting, a passing interest, and then he'd turned back into the world that he had no place in. Everyone always sad you couldn't go home again — what they didn't say was that finding a new place you could call home was just as impossible. There was a sense of aimlessness chasing at his heels, and it seems that desperately searching for a purpose ran in his family. Val had walked long enough now that his paws were calloused and well-adjusted to the heat of sand and the sick slick squelch of mud. Life went on, and on, and on. But these days it feels like a tedious monotony instead of a new adventure around every turn, and he's gotta say that at least part of that is the lack of company. No matter how many times a day he'd end up snapping at Butch to stop talking (no, dimwit, that's not the way it works; shut up Butch; stop screwing with my fur, Butch), he misses the commentary now that there's just silence. He'd see something pretty and look for the collie to say something or ask some kinda dumbass question.

He'd gotten used to not seeing his dad after a month, his best friend after three weeks, and Butch — he's not even sure how long it's been, but he's starting to fucking wonder.

Whatever. The point is that he's here and not anywhere else. The desert sun burns at his back and brings out the gold in his fur. Only the leather satchel strapped to his side offers any sort of cover, but his skin boils even under that. If he doesn't find some shade soon, he's gonna end up dead of a heatstroke. (Butch would hate it here. He's more prone to heatstroke than the Shepherd. Shut up, Val.) With some halfhearted sigh, the dog stops walking and twists towards the water he kept with the satchel, teeth clamping into it. Almost empty by now, another reason to find somewhere to settle down for a while. As soon as he gets a hold of it, it's knocked out of his mouth along with all the air in his lungs. He hits the ground with a yelp that's far from flattering, tumbling with the force of it until, miraculously, it ends with his feet in the sand again.

The animal that faces him, breathing hard and heart almost beating out of its chest, looks worse for wear than he does. A gash on the wolf's forehead drips red to their eyes, and he can see bruises coloring their skin where fur ruffles or parts. "Hey." They flinch a little. "Hey. Cool it, I'm a doctor." Sort of. Not quite. "The hell happened to you?" They relax a little, still ready to dash off but not right now, so the dog steps a little closer. Satchel's already undone, doesn't take more than a second to reach for his supplies. He bandages the gash in silence as the wolf gets antsier and antsier, then, just like that they're gone. "Hey!" he shouts again as they rush back into the heart of the desert. Val huffs in disbelief and follows at a slower pace — at least now he can see... something out there. So much for gratitude, but it's not like he'd expected anything else out of this world. Just a new place to go.