Re: Stairs to the roof. The shadows. [Belated Swearing warning?]
The Wolf sniffed once more at the cologne, growled his displeasure, and then leaned back again and closed his eyes. Pack would not harm him, he decided rather unexpectedly, and maybe it was the weight of his eyelids that made the decision for him. The not-thing didn't remember dying, and the Wolf was willing to accept that as reasonable doubt; he wouldn't kill it.
"If I was dead, I would be dead," the Wolf said with grumbling ire, assuming the not-thing meant that he would swear about being dead. He wouldn't. If he died, which he did not intend to do, he would stay dead. He wouldn't haunt anyone, and he wouldn't swear, and who was Jesus Christ and where was he hiding the pogo stick? "The afterlife is nothing," he added. Animals didn't think about things like the afterlife. Animals concentrated on now, and the Wolf batted the not-thing's head as a reminder of that.