Noctisardor Bypass newanen

there was always time to spare for any one of the many children inhabiting rivenwood. heda took the evening patrol and let @Gideon accompany her. they would stay close, she explained, and she would show him the place where she and druid had once found a little snake called bracelet.
her eyes watched him; she fell into a playbow, inviting him from the rendezvous by the great tree as she assured the boy he could stay out after dark with her, if he wanted.

At first, the notion of accompanying Heda on evening patrol sounded absolutely dreadful to Gideon. As much as he loved his mother and cherished time spent in her company, patrol to a three month old wolf puppy who wasn't especially inclined toward guardianship amounted to the following:

"Stay on the path, Gideon."
"Keep an eye out for wolves, Gideon."
"Stop putting those weeds in your mouth, Gideon."

But then Heda promised he could stay out after dark with her, and that changed everything.

Are there big scary monsters? he asked as he tagged along after her, tails a-whirring and paws a-bounding. What about bad guys? Oooh! Oooh! What about Snargledegrumps?

Gideon had recently seen a badger waddling about the edge of the rendezvous, minding its own, and learned just how grouchy a badger was when he tried to approach it and it grunted and growled at him. Ever since then he had christened them Snargledegrumps, some mangled amalgamation of snarling and grumpy.

getting after him bemused heda, reminding her that there was far more to life than the chaos which had marked her own thus far. her eyes were warm on gideon, watching him prance at her side. his two tails hardly warranted a glance these days; they were uniquely gideon, the same way his deep beautiful eyes were his own. not her. not anselm. but bits of shining sunny gold swimming up every time he grinned or laughed or shouted.
heda chuckled. "well, if we run into any of these snargledegrumps, you're here! gideon of rivenwood. they wouldn't try anything against how brave you are. bad guys too," his mother assured with a nod.
she brought her plucky little son to the old rendezvous where she and druid had spent a lot of time together. "your aunt brought me a little snake, right here," she said, turning her head to look toward the towering yellow oak trees. "named her bracelet."
what an eternity ago that had been.

Yeah! said Gideon with a proud little huff of air. He splayed his forelegs and pushed out his chest and flung his tails high in the sky. No Snargledegrumps ever beat me! Except that one time. But no more!

Truth be told, Gideon wasn't very brave, he just pretended to be. Being out in the evening was both super cool and a little scary. The shadows were longer and deeper, and Rivenwood felt heavier somehow. There were dark swooping creatures in the orange-tinged sky when he looked up. They didn't look like any birds he had ever seen. He wanted to ask what they were, but didn't want to shatter his mom's belief that he was very brave, so he strutted along full of false bravado and silently wished Ezra was with him. Ezra was much braver.

Curiosity got the better of his trepidation when Heda motioned to the tree and told him about the snake auntie Druid had brought. He scampered forth to sniff around the log where Bracelet had been found, but he hadn't the faintest idea what a snake smelled like, so he couldn't really say whether that musty and sort of fungal smell was a snake or something else. What's a bracelet? he idly asked, squinting to try to see into the dark belly of the log.

"it's something that goes around your wrist, see," and heda bent a thin stem of rosevine against her own ankle. "bracelet was a snake, and she'd wrap all the way around aunt druid's wrist. snakes don't have legs. they're like — have you ever seen a worm curled all up? snakes are like that, but larger."
while he looked in one direction, heda found the faintest reek of badger, and followed its musky strength down into a little gully. "oh, dear," she murmured to herself, motioning for gideon to keep back. "badgers are nasty with a bad bite. look," toward a ramshackle pile of deadfall over a wide-mouthed burrow, "that's where he's made his set."