drudin. she was well-mannered and seemed articulate, fine attributes that even the eyass had yet to conceive. he began with no evident mirth in his features, “your mother thinks you a soothsayer?” maybe, he had never thought to charm forest-adders as she had.

bracelet and druid. “astraeus. mahler’s son.” probably one of his only conciliatory traits when it came to rivenwood wolves, or sometimes his undoing, motherlessness being evidence. he would have been impressed the little girl found any likeness between them, looking paste his unruly coiffure and blackened skin. he forgot to mention to himself if it wasn’t the work of the placebo effect, a lie that had be a truth in reality. “how did you meet … bracelet?”

hearing the wood-elf answer his questions faithfully with that of a naif charm and trembling nerve was stimulating. he was more keen on killing snakes, he had never knew they were born like birds. funny, how they were cursed to gulp the dust of the earth for all their days while birds could forget their gravitational tether at whim.

before he could ask druidin if she thought the ophidian envied the columbidae, before she startled him with her uncut words like a child screaming 'chutiya!' when the jenga tower falls while their amma is in the living area.

"...what?" he began, his back growing hot with a nervous sweat, "yes. i mean yes, he told me so," he whispered quietly as if he were caught in a lie, swallowing as the jahilian odes laden with want and motherlessness he sung for his dam in his first year came back to him.

as the boy listened to druid's question he wistfully was reminded of mahler's affair with language, astraeus began to think if he had lost everything to would be his dearest love from the way he told his tales and even technicalities. "never," he shook his head softly and bent down closer to the girl to whisper, "if you can find the frogs with the berries in their bellies, i will sell you a word. a very special german word."