Loviere had soon lost himself in his whittling. The sights and sounds of the wood melted into a soft ambience that he disregarded almost entirely. The head of a raccoon formed underneath his stone piece on the piece of wood. He outlined the facial mask carefully, making sure it was almost completely symmetrical. He carefully rounded the head, not forgetting to make the ears beforehand. He was only making a rough draft of sorts. The detail and fine shaping would come later. It wasn't going to be a piece he would trade. Whittling the raccoon sculpture was simply practice for a larger project he had in mind. Loviere did need practice when it came to making the fur on his sculpts seem real. So absorbed was he in his art, Loviere did not hear the approaching hybrid.
He leapt up in surprise at the sound of her voice, spinning around with a snarl of sorts. In his surprise, he put too much weight on the defected leg and he nearly fell sideways, but recovered just in time. Embarrassed and worried to be caught in such a weak state, Loviere backed up cautiously, observing the female. She was smaller than he was, that was obvious. Loviere found himself thanking his tundra ancestry. It was one thing to be without the proper use of one leg when encountering a stranger, another thing to be smaller than the stranger. He brought himself to his full height, hair raising on his creamy mane.
"W-who are you?" He found himself regretting changing into his Optime form. He was definitely more impressive in the other two shapes. Watery gold eyes found themselves taking in the appearance of the female. She had bright blue eyes that looked friendly enough. Nothing about her seemed to speak of aggression, but Loviere could not be sure. His eyes dropped to the raccoon figure he had been working on, which now lied closer to her than to him. He had dropped the sharpened stone as well, which was also his only means of defense besides his teeth and claws. He attempted to look fearsome, but inexperience dripped from his voice as he stumbled over his words.
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