Niamh had followed Kodlak quietly, grateful for the calm that he seemed to carry with him in every movement and demeanour. Had he pushed her to talk, she might have finally realized she was following a complete stranger to an unknown location...And the thought did occur to her, finally, when she realized they were going to a more secluded place. Niamh was young, and she'd agreed to go simply because he was charming and she was naive...But she'd begun to realize she might not be one hundred percent safe with him, and thus, when he smiled at her and lay down, she gave him a smile that could easily have been discerned as being a bit awkward, before she sat down, facing him. She didn't want to lay down...Just in case. The second thoughts she was having were mostly stemming from the conscience that was yelling at her to be more careful around strangers.
...But the serenity that swathed him was enough to make her other voice- call it the devil on her shoulder- to say that she was just being ridiculous. He wasn't going to do anything to her, obviously, so she relaxed a bit. She glanced up at the trees, and nodded. "I dunno. Some of them around here just go yellow, but some of them go like...Orange and red. Those ones are my favourite," She said. Naturally, Niamh didn't know enough about trees to know which ones turned which colour- until they'd already started to turn.
Speaking of colours- when he asked her what she wanted to hear about, she already knew. She smiled bashfully as he referred to her as a huntress...He certainly knew how to stroke her ego, didn't he? "The lights in the sky," She said. "Is it the same as like the sun or the moon? I've never, like...Seen anything other than those- oh, and the stars- in the sky."
OK so I have two apps on my phone for Northern Lights warnings/probabilities so I can drive out of the city in the middle of the night and take pictures of them...So Niamh gets alll her curiousity about them from me XD
It was hard to remain paranoid or skittish about Kodlak when he talked about the leaves the way he did. She was easily lulled into a more comfortable posture when he described them, and she too glanced up at the trees again, imagining the colours. It wasn't something she'd really taken notice of before- but with the way Kodlak said it, now she wanted nothing more than to see the fiery colours of autumn. She did like pretty things, after all, like a magpie- for Niamh, it was feathers that caught her interest, hence why she spent so much time hunting birds. Their brightest feathers lined her den. Pheasants, in particular, were sought-after, as well mallards. Some day she hoped to catch a hummingbird so she could have a special little corner for those tiny, jewel-coloured feathers...But the likelihood of a wolf catching a hummingbird was slim to none.
She was immediately drawn into his story as he described the lights- which definitely sounded like something Niamh had never even imagined. Lights with those colours- in the sky? And at night, against the tar black sky? She tried to picture it, and in her mind she could envision dancing pillars of light, but nowhere near as beautiful or vivid as the real ones, which would obviously blow her mind if she ever got the chance to see them. He said they were rare- but that they would wait, nonetheless, to see them and chase them. So they moved...Her mental image of the lights improved, changing from dancing pillars to ribbons, like snakes as they twisted in the sky above, the movement like that of fish under water. Unable to help herself, she looked up into the sky again, which was a lovely, but in comparision, plain blue.
"How rare are they?" She asked.
"Is there ever any chance we could see them here?" She asked. Obviously, now, she'd have to keep an eye out for them.
^^ Caught that pic in the fall of 2016 I think :)
Niamh was disappointed to hear that they weren't even in the right season- but at least he seemed to have an idea of when they might be able to see them. It made more sense, to Niamh, to see them in the winter- after all, he saw them in the North, where the earth was apparently blanketed with snow, so winter just seemed to suit the occasion. She could almost picture the reflection of the lights off the bright white surface of snow too- and figured it'd be all the more beautiful later on in the year than it would over green and brown.
"I'll keep an eye out for them." She said- and she would. Part of Niamh would always be on watch for them now, when she did her patrols during the night- just in case.
"So you said...You chased them, in honour to the goddess of the hunt? Hir...I'm sorry, I forget the name," She apologized bashfully. The words he used were new to her- it was hard to keep track of all these new names and terms.