Quaking Vale willow

Conveniently enough, a shiver worked down her spine as well. A soft blech escaped her even too. Features momentarily crinkled before they smoothed out into her soft face once more. She wondered if that was why she hadn't met anyone yet. How long had she walked in circles without knowing it? Chasing her own tail?

"What?!" She blurted in a way that immediately made her shrink into herself. It was not very royal like to raise her voice with such shock and awe. Her features morphed into an apologetic look before she carried on. "You really saw something like that? Like... you're not joking?" Throughout her questions her voice had morphed from disbelief to genuine concern.

Maybe she should have stayed home...no one told her about bone piles.

He wasn't exactly sure what had prompted her reaction, or the apologetic look that flickered over her features, but it made him want to frown. Perhaps she was just a little more timid than he thought, which was a possibility, since he really didn't know her at all. Offering a reassuring smile, he hoped to keep the lively mood going.

Her disbelief and concern only spurred on his enthusiasm and excitement, as he hopped from one paw to another. "Oh no, I didn't just see it. I walked right onto it without realizing. I was just minding my own business, trying to stay out of the mud by hopping from snow pile to snow pile, and bam, I'm just standing right on top of bones." Landen hadn't thought the bone pile to be all that remarkable, but perhaps he hadn't been thinking abstractly enough.

If she had been alarmed before, she was even further alarmed now. Deeply disturbed by the fact that he had just jumped onto a bone pile. What sort of bones had they been? Who had made a pile big enough for a wolf to jump on? More importantly...

”Was anyone — anything — else there?”

It had come out in a strained whisper, worried that maybe somehow whoever had made it would be here. Listening in on the two yearlings that chattered away about it.

Truthfully? She hadn’t though that he could be a knight or prince when he had stumbled over his words. Yet here he was, having jumped bone piles and lived to tell the tale.

Her whisper only added to the ambiance, so Leander played into it, leaning in and offering a whisper of his own. "Yes."

He let the moment drag on for two quickened heartbeats, waiting for her reaction before he let the pretense fall away, a goofy smile etching itself once more onto his features. "My brother." His nose crinkled, "Which makes the story a lot less scary, but before I ran into him it was terrifying." Landen's presence had definitely been a welcome one. "He thinks it was coyotes, but I've never seen coyotes hoard bones like that." In fact, he had never seen anything hoard bones like that. Even wolves weren't want to keep them around for that long.

(This post was last modified: May 14, 2021, 05:53 AM by Leander.)

Her heart was a hammer against her chest. Yet she still heard it thud in her ears with an intensity that could not be ignored.

Bam, bam, BAM.

The whole time. Right until he tacked on the important details that followed his discovery. It had been his brother who had shown up. Who had quickly poked holes in the scariness of a bone pile with realistic thoughts. Although Leander had a point that she nodded her head along with.

"I've never heard of anything hoarding bones like that." A little wiggle of a shiver down her spine. "Do you think you'll ever...go back?"