Whether my words are effective or the child has simply been stricken mute, I do not know; I don’t even offer her a passing glance as the silence extends from where her small and ignorant white frame had been chattering stupidly, allowing my attentions to focus fully on the damsel’s pretty amethyst eyes.

How? she asks the small whelp, and I gather enough in the single syllable to find my smirk revitalized. How indeed? She’d been underfoot gathering crystals, a task (I believe, anyway) was one the Spark had given her to keep the Bear from devouring her, or smashing her flat beneath one of his massive paws.

Yet, the conversation continues, and the Princess sips from my words like wine, the delicate scent of flowers kissing the wind which crosses the small clearing, blessedly carrying away the carrion stench of the Bear’s carcass. Devouring her attention as any arrogant boy would, I delight in each minute change of expression as the tale winds, that she does not seem to waver in her attentions for even a second as my story intertwines with the air.

And then she is stepping nearer to me, on those shapely legs and split hooves, a complement dripping from her lips that makes my heart skip and leap with erratic glee, though I try to keep my smiling face impassive, bold and knightly as she has intoned me to be; a smile still spreads broad across my features, my ego purring like a rather pleased cat.

The proximity of her dark muzzle makes my skin tingle, gilded eyes alive as they mesh with the path of her cool lavender gaze. I angle my own head low, ears lifting to catch the soft words she follows the niceties with.

Of course she would be worried for her baby brother, as I worried for Aithniel during each fight – and yet, her worries were unfounded. Erebos had been strong and bold, and while he had not been as useful in the final moments of the battle, a part of the battle he had been, and the Spark had even bequeathed him with a crystal as a gift.

I will not steal these stories from my battle brother, my snow and stone kin. Such a delightful tale is one that is his alone to share, and so I only answer what she must know to ease the fretful pacing of her woman’s heart.

"He took some minor wounds," I answer with the grin of proud memory, remembering how the blood of the Bear had marked his face, but recalling no other pains having befallen my friend – we had been a force to be reckoned with, the three of us, Aithniel, Erebos, and I, "but was otherwise fine, even earning a gift from the Spark for his efforts."

I had earned only words – but, as I had thought then, so do I now. The praise of a God is worth a thousand crystal trinkets.

Together we lift our heads up and look away to the bones of the beast, though I do not look to the little sky mongrel so much as I watch the lines of Lothiriel’s figure as she dances nearer the devastation, her voice cool and demanding.

"Was, yes," I explain, taking a few long steps closer to the carcass, my nostrils wrinkling in dislike of the smell now that we’ve come so close.


@Lothiriel