Bearclaw Valley With the thrill of a kill, vengefully, the engine will

Conversational though the young chub was, Lucas still possessed an attention span that only suited users aged one to three, so he was already off on some other tangent in his head by the time Piper responded. As a result he had nothing to add and offered no other social cues for their conversation to springboard from. A back-and-forth exchange of about two seconds was all anyone could expect from him; he was much better at physically engaging others by dancing or tusseling with them than he was talking.

Good thing Piper was good at this, then. She offered another subject and Lucas paused, paw half-cocked toward the flower for another pat, to think about his answer. "No," he admitted, but then added, "maybe?" when his belly, motivated by the mere thought of food, pinched gently.