Jude's hand is taken, feet are gotten to, walk walked in mostly silence. Maybe some words exchanged, but mostly not, as if they were still two wolves moving in companiable silence together through the woods, give or take some cookie eating on the way. Once they pass from wilderness to society, Marcus is silent, observing.

Smells, sounds, sights, and the dim awareness that he is being invited into something in a more meaningful way than he might have anticipated. He still, now and then, tries to feel out the space in his mind where the wolf would go, and it's not absent. Feels like it's moving with its belly close to the ground, ears back, as they head for the cabin.

Feels like it hunkers right down at the back of his mind at the invisible force that surrounds the woman that emerges from the kitchen, and Marcus is conscious not to let the same reflect in his posture. There's no cause to challenge anyone, here, but he'd rather not appear meek.

True self-flagellation was not requesting he go get changed and tie his hair or something.

But he stops still, disarmed, as her focus finds him and Jude makes his introductions. One hand gripping the other, seeking where a ring currently is not, as she echoes the thing Jude had said to him in his slow emergence.

"I'm sorry for the trouble," he says, after a moment.