Alpine Lake i'm just looking for something to soften the blow

Her initial displeasure seemed ebbed away by his charm, much to his liking. Such things were all hit and miss; a win was a win where he could claim it. More often than not it served to knock others off balance and if that was what he sought to do, then let it be done. In any case it had been enough to tease a laugh from her, which considerably lightened the mood inside decidedly cramped quarters.

Another percussive rumble shook the earth beneath his feet as he stepped back away from the cavern mouth, as though he could honestly make more space. There was the faintest of dripping there, somewhere in the cracks and crevices meant for none of the ilk. Perhaps it was he who should have been leery of her, but he felt comfortable enough to take his gilded gaze from her.

"You can call me Dirge," he answered her as he examined one such crack. "And I suppose sometimes even trouble follows the best of intentions, though I assure you trouble is the least of my desires to find today." Or any other day, he thought; trouble found him and his kin regardless. Trouble was perhaps the one thing he knew the best, but maybe not so much in any traditional capacity.