“You would have been dead,” Vesper confirmed heavily, but the seriousness she was placing on such a statement made her chuckle softly until she actually considered it. My father would have had fun with this one, she thought, her smirk turning briefly grim before she suppressed the emotions. She took a seat in the thick, plush grass and flicked her tail over the tops of the wildflowers growing against the side of the tombstones. It was almost as if nature had begun to bestow gifts upon the graves, though she doubted nature much cared for the creatures decayed under the dirt.
Leigha mentioned a secret, and the coywolf cocked her head before nodding slightly at her explanation. Someone starved for attention and a companion to talk to would surely try to find people to meet. The fact that she acknowledged this hinted at a self-aware personality, something that the loner could respect. She nodded again then frowned when the pack wolf inferred she knew how being alone would feel.
“I am alone,” Vesper said, “but I am not lonely.”
She had never really been lonely. Even as a pup, she had been the one to wander around on her own. Her sister had pressed close to their mother, and Winter herself was used to being by herself. Vesper was like her mother in that aspect; she was used to having only herself, and she didn’t mind. That wasn’t to say that she liked solitude over company—well, smart company, at least. The number of idiots in the world astounded her sometimes.
Leigha said she was a singer and actress from Cercatori d’Arte. The foreign name made Vesper’s ears prick, and she knew she wasn’t going to be repeating the word any time soon. “That’s quite a mouthful for a pack name.” She paused and commented softly, “My sister liked to sing. Her name was Sparrow.” She nodded at the question, the answer too obvious to repeat, then came back with a question of her own. “What’s an actress? I’m not familiar with it other than as a figure of speech. Do you mean it’s an actual rank in the pack?”
