After the coronation ceremony was over and the guests began to enjoy the feast and the afterparty, Dwin removed herself to a quiet corner of the room and sat down to observe the groud. Here and there she spotted familiar faces. Now and then Frolic and her friend was sneaking around the crowd. People socialized, people indulged themselves with the assorted food offered and all in all were having a good time. 

She - on the other hand - felt tired and wished to remove herself from the crowd. The place was spectacular and spacious, plenty of room for anyone to find a place, but it was also foreign. Dwin missed her forest and trees, which offered a cover, she missed the smell of snow and simply the feeling of belonging there. Here she was out of her depths. It was interesting to watch, how other people chose to live their lives, but she did not feel the allure to ever try their way of living. 

Dreadfather! It was the first thought that came to her mind, when a familiar tall, dark stranger passed her by. After a little hesitation she jumped to her feet, caught up with him and with a twinkle in her eyes asked: "Is the carnage far off?"

The girl with endless questions thought about his answer carefully. Which was not an easy thing to do, because now that the fellow was no longer agitated and eager to save the world (and express some worrying signs of madness), she noticed that he was handome. Devillishly, sinnfully so. His close proximity to her messed with her thoughts, while she tried very hard to formulate a conclusion. 

"Why do I have a feeling that I would hear something similar, regardless of, what would have happened here?" she arched an eyebrow and smiled. She assumed that his beliefs in gods were so solid that he would find an explanation of why they were right (or why there was a bigger plan in the works) even in the face of glaringly obvious facts of the contrary. She could not win an argument with him, if she wanted to change his mind. All she could do was to challenge him and observe him scramble for answers. 

"So - what are you to the new pharaoh? A brother? A lover? A former or future fiance?" she asked. 

Yeah, you have not been very succesful in advertising your faith to possible converts. Dwin thought to herself in response to his remark about her being a non-believer. Which - strictly speaking -was not true at all. His particular brand of gods did not convince her much (or maybe the gods were not blame for bad marketing). However, she believed in there being something that was larger than life. A power that kept everything going on. Not controlling. Neither did she give any cents for conspiracy theories. But just as death was a mystery, so was life on Earth. Wasn't it amazing, how dust could come together again and again to create so many different shapes, forms and characters?

The remainder of his replies to her questions was met with a slightly disappointed sigh. Why was it so that tall, dark, mysterious, brooding and very handsome strangers were ALL those things in (saucy) stories? When you met them in real life they were either crazy (though this fellow seemed more in touch with reality today) or had boring explanations. Had he been a hero of any of those steamy chick-lit or mild erotica novels, he would probably have have had a whirlwind romance with the new pharaoh before her becoming the wife of the sun god (or what-not - Dwin had not paid close attention to details). Or he would have attempted to steal her away. Or prove his undying immortal love in the most ridiculous ways.

Or... Dwin had to admit - he was a complete loss to the myths and legends for the future generations of women to dream about and swoon over. The worst part - he was not even aware of it! "What do you do now that you are not leading a pack or scaring people with ghastly premonitions?" she asked. Then for some reason she remembered that creepy white-furred guy, who went around doing trades. "Does your god tell you other things that might happen in the future? I am pretty sure that many packs would be happy to trade in food and - perhaps - even paws of their youngest daughters in marriage, were you to tell them their fortunes?" she teased him.

"Threadbones - what are that?" Dwin had never heard the term before, but the first image her imagination conjured was this guy pushing bones around in a place that was an equivalent of elephant graveyard in "The Lion King". Next she wondered, whether those premonition bones of his had belonged to the ancestors he had mentioned. Then she moved on to wonder, briefly, whether she really wanted to find out. And finally - that even if his inventory consisted of his aunt's skull, uncle's spine, mom's ribs and father's baculum (*she almost guffawed at this thought, the immature teenager she was*) - it could have been a lot worse. Say, he practiced reading the future from animal innards. Say - he gutted his family members to connect to gods! That would make a cool horror story to scare kids during the ghost months, but...

Dwin! Dwin? DWIN!!! She realized she had got carried away and with a quick shake of her head she cleared the mental white-board and focused on the man again. Never one to shy away from personal questions, she asked: "How did you come to that conclusion?"

The truth was less exciting than Dwin had imagined, but it was not a bad thing. Many musings of her would be too much for the real life to bear. Though she was still fairly certain that the man here was nuts, it was very alluring to allow an idea of there being a possibility of spirits talking through the bones.

"Well, you seem to have come out of them with something very valuable, called self-awareness," she pointed out. "Perhaps, in your next big romantic adventure you need to choose something that does not catch fire or feed it," figuratively, of course.

"You can hardly call yourself a bachelor after two failed marriages," Dwin pointed out to him with a sly grin. "That's reserved for those guys, who have never dipped their paws in that river," and the same applied to spinsterhood. You heard about widows or divorced women, but you never reversed back to spinster after you had had that ring on your finger. Somehow men were of mind that once they were freed of the web called blissful married life, they were back at the square one. They  could think, of course, all they wanted, but Dwin knew better.

"I think that recycled goods applies to your kind," she told him. "With some spiritual connections. Say - have you used those threadbones of yours for selfish gains? Say - now that the pharaoh is safe - maybe they can point you out, where to find that third charm of yours?" 

"Do I sense some self-awareness here?" Dwin laughed at the man's arrogance and - was it pride - in his romantic endeavours that had not ended in a pink, fluffy and rainbow-filled happily ever afters. Were he as talented in proper storytelling as he was in being a guy with gods living inside his skull, he would have surely continued to entertain Dwin. 

"Wise? No. Practical? Yes. I imagine it would save you a lot of time. But it would probably scare that poor girl to death if you appeared on her doorstep in the wrong time and place and declared that you were her twin-flame or star-crossed lover to be," if it was her, she would probably tell him to eff over and creep some other people around. 

"Well, mine's may be about to begin," she told him, taking a step closer her jade gaze seeking his icewater one. She smiled at him devillishly and said: "You are a crazy freak with an obsession with bones - I think that this is exactly the kind of Prince Terrible a girl from the land of fairies and dragons could bring home. What do you say?"

The tomboy Dwin was - she had never considered flirting with anyone on purpose. So her bold and cheeky move and his dumbfounded reaction caught her by surprise as well. What had begun as a good natured tease had quite abruptly become something entirely different. She felt both confused and gleeful, while simultaneously whacking away the tiny, annoying thoughts about propriety and common courtesy that just kept creeping out of the dark corners of her mind.

"That's the wrong answer," she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "If you meant to drive a Blackthorn away, you had to tell me that you were hopelessly boring," she chuckled and stepped back to give him and her some breathing room. "Don't worry - I do not intend to snare you in holy matrimony," she tilted her head to the side and regarded him through narrowed lids. "Just yet."

She paused, allowing to sink that in: "I offer you a paw in friendship. I see that you are a curious character with a sharp mind that is a little foggy and you will definitely benefit from some rattling in form of questions. And that's my trade. What do you say?"

"You have dug your own grave," Dwin grinned in response to his answer, feeling thoroughly amused and noting that this was not only the first guy she had flirted with, but had felt true interest in him too. Funny thing aging does to you, because just over a year ago, no, even few months ago her opinion of the opposite sex in romantic terms had been "ugh cooties". Now, she was genuinely curious. 

"Alright. My mom will be glad to know that I have made an acquaintance here. She and I made a deal that I would at least attempt to date once a year," she lied smoothly, though her good-natured grin and the sly twinkle in her eyes told that she was messing with him. Maia was a very liberal mom, but Dwin had a feeling that she would be just as happy to see her daughter mingle with other single people, as support her in her independence. 

"Do you know, where Redhawk caldera is located?" she asked next. "And I did not catch the name of your permanent place of residence either."

"Very well then - when you are in the area next time, give a call," Dwin told him, took another step back to stretch thoroughly. All that flirting was a very taxing business. For a beginner anyway. She thought to herself. But then it could also be the presence of so many unfamiliar wolves around her and, how she felt a bit trapped in the crowd. 

"I will be looking forward to seeing you again and learning from you," she told him. "Keep the lines with the gods open and maybe find some that may be willing to talk to me," she teased him again. But on the other hand, if the guy you fancy is into spirits, you could not exactly ask him to bring flowers to the date, could you?

"I have to go and find my sister - see if she is in need to be rescued from any trouble," she said. "See you around, Prince Terrible," she winked and with that moved past him and disappeared in the crowd.