At some point, the raven had flapped off, and Vesper was glad that the burden of his gaze had been removed. She did not know how serious the bird was in reporting her for her various “misdeeds,” but she was sure he could warp the story if he wanted to make it sound like she was fraternizing with strangers for some ill-guided purpose. However, she was not, and Stark knew that, and she doubted deep in her heart that he wanted her to get in trouble. In his own strange way, she thought that the stupid bird cared about her, but she dismissed that thought. One shouldn’t care for lower animals, no matter how useful.
She was distracted by her quick search of the sky, so when the male began to stammer out his words, she almost missed them. Her ears swiveled forward again, and her heart went out to him as the story began to take shape. She remembered wanting so hard to protect Juniper way back when, back when she was only a girl, back when she killed for the first and only time. Only this attempt had resulted in the death of his lovely friend, something she doubted she could cope with; it was commendable that he’d managed to hold up under her interrogation.
He mentioned a bad leg, and her stomach did that little flip it had when she’d noticed his eyes didn’t exactly match. But she listened to the rest of his tale politely, open sympathy in her expression, until the last words broke from his lips and dropped into the thawing grass.
Vesper stared at him, her chest constricted, her stomach dropping. She rose onto all fours and stepped backwards, putting distance between the words he’d spoken as if she could outrun a black epiphany. Her tongue floundered in her mouth like a bone-dry fish before she spoke, four words wriggling from her mouth and floating terrified in the cold air.
“What did you say?”
Her ears snapped forward suddenly, and she drew her dark-tipped tail up. Her quiet little whisper reformed itself as a snapping demand.
“What did you say? What was her name?!”
Image courtesy of ChainBound
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