While Alaric was exercising his youthful, athletic body in a adrenaline-rush kind of activity that may lead to either your death or some broken bones and harbouring murderous thoughts about two other males in the pack at the same time.... [now this was a long sentence, Lele's narrator needed to catch breath here] ..., Lele was comfortably walking a well-trodden, wide path and thinking about nothing and no one. Had she been a younger girl still, she might have built dream-dens about achievements, kids and men (like that handsome one on the rocks). Now, however, having witnessed, how much effort and energy those little rascals took, and growing tired even by looking at them, she was glad to stay as far away from them as possible. 

"Oy - mountain goat guy!" she called out, when she caught sight of a familiar tall dark stranger she had not met in a while. "Working on your charm of planning your rise to the next karmic level?" she asked. 

"They might be of a different opinion, were you to ask them," Lele shot back and grinned at him again. "And I think that if you surveyed the mountain goat lady population, they might not find you particularly attractive either. No horns, no beard and that long tail of yours - ugh!" she feigned disgust, but there was unbridled laughter in her eyes ant tone. "But I have heard that the greatest test of any true bard is to charm one's way into having other species dote on them. So - unless you spring around this autumn with a flock of ladies or unless I see horned-wolves parading all over Moonspear next spring - I will consider you not accomplished enough," another joke. 

"How has life been treating you?" she asked next, kind of hoping that he descended on a level ground so that she did not have to strain her neck in order to get a sight of him. 

"Weren't you the chap, who never backed down from a challenge?" Lele asked. "Isn't that, what men do? Prove themselves?" she teased and then paused to yawn. But all nonesense aside, doing stupid things to simply prove that you were capable of doing them was not a sign of either bravery or common sense. Reckless men were exciting to have around, but the men that stayed alive long-term were usually better suited for a family life. 

"Ooooh, do tell - who wounded your pride? Stepped on your toes? Stole a lady you had yearned for all your life?" she asked. "I promise - I won't tell anyone," and she would not have to work too hard to keep that promise, since she did not socialize too often. 

Lele, who had at times very stereotypical view of the opposite sex and after their last conversation (which also had been their first) thought of Alaric as some sort of immature airhead, had expected to hear a very stupid and shallow reason for his anger. Instead - as the details of the incident unraveled smile disappeared from her face and her expression grew very serious. Alaric did not name the two men, but the very thought that any one of them could have acted so shamefully filled her heart with utter disgust. For she too had been on the receiving end of unwelcome displays of attraction (to put it mildly) and she could all too easily imagine standing in this man's sister's shoes. 

"Is she alright now?" she asked after a moment of silence, because asking, whether he had had some tough word-exchange with the guilty party did not seem relevant. Because words did not do anything to stop these things from happening. 

Lele agreed wholeheartedly, though a small part of her was of opinion that, if you were in heat, you should not stray around packs anyway. But that's a truth you learn from your own experiences and over time.

"Most evil in the world comes from assholes and fools," she remarked. "Fancy to drown your frustration in something substantial? Food, perhaps?" she asked.