ooc: :o tis a mini cave!
The woman of autumn was further smiles and glee. Her tail aloft and quivering excitedly at the acceptance of her offer to a change in venue. Hopefully, she thought this change would lift the girl’s spirits a little more, or at least well enough that a true smile would touch her soft muzzle just as the one that played upon it so briefly. A flicker of green met her own eyes and that radiant smile of the youth was gone. With reason, the Nomad could understand why, but as one would look upon the youth in understanding, so did she look to Lyris and offer a calming whine to ease possibly frazzled nerves. The gesture had been an accident nothing more, a result of unbridled happiness, but still the female lifted her head and further asserted herself as superior but just as quickly let her head slip lower to be level with the alabaster muzzle.
“Come,” she beaconed softly and turned with surprising ease on the tops of her paws. The path parted by the previous bold advance made the way easier to walk through as she led them from the lining wilderness. With a spring to her step she bound in the general direction of the lake, twisting and winding every which-way through the fading green as if giving chase to some elusive prey. Every now again she would turn swiftly on the balls of her pads and run back after the youth she assumed would follow. She made a little game of it, even if it was one unbecoming of her age and rank. Her mood was to play and be merry, little else, and she was glad for it. And such a joy she wanted to share even at the expense of looking odd.
Slingshotting around youth Lyris, the Nomad was off again with attempted (and failing) grace, the scent of the shore in her nostrils, but not without the fine cooling touch of the breeze. As the ground gave way to balding land and wet rock, her pace slowed and heading turned east as if back to the mountain…but there was a slight change in their direction. Avoiding the remnants of dilapidated structures, the course inlaid was for what appeared to be a small mound. But it was only that on the surface, a protrusion from the ground itself; a pile that aspired to be a hill but lacked the necessary earth to stretch it fully. Dancing around the circumference of the mound, she came to the head of it and dispelled its illusion. An entrance was nestled within, tall enough for her body to pass through with a width accommodating to her frame and perhaps another. She paused there and turned to look at her charge, smile as brightly as the shining sun. “Have you ever seen starlight in the day, Lyris?” Through a veil of wild locks she looked upon the scarred white maw. “Have you ever, for a moment, seen the whole of the day turn to beautiful night?”