Lost Creek Hollow until my body 'gan to say oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh

snow, and the powerful man who had greeted the former bearclaw wolve was gone.
mona was wary at such a change so swiftly after their arrival, but terance and treason seemed a capable pair. laurel and indra also resided here; she must not forget that. her breath rose in a frozen plume as she wriggled from her den, oofing in mild surprise as snow dropped down between her red ears. and then she was off, thickened pelt arranged neatly about her shoulders.
she felt in time she would seek out stigmata; she did not think he had gone far, but feared his reaction. he had gone! he was disallowed from criticizing the decision to leave bearclaw. and yet mona still was not sure; it weighed upon her as she began a slow patrol, beginning at the edge of eldershade grove. 
and yet her thoughts were shyly lightened by the recollection of the wolf upon the coast.

If being forced to adjust to the new Sunspi— the new Lost Creek Hollow area felt unconscionable to young, emotional Deshyr, then having to deal with a dead Coelho and a half-dead father was comparable to sacrilege in her mind. There was no room for this! There were outsiders afoot, and new threats abound! It was too much newness, too many yet unexplored variables; it was all too fast and it left the girl reeling.

Still, she felt she had to tough it up, or at least defy the urge to crumple up and sob for her life back on the mountain. And it was in this sour, ungrateful mood, that she came upon Mona.

Deshyr balked at first, and then scowled at having been caught off guard by the slight, non-threatening appearance of one of those "outsiders". She had expected something more... unlikeable. The girl huffed and set her frown from stun to kill.  "Who're you?" she half-quibbled, half-demanded, in a shrill voice both accusatory and uncertain.

so rife were her thoughts of the man that mona did not immediately hear the approach of small, indignant paws. however, her senses engaged — the mayfair drew up as she was accosted by a dour-faced child who seemed less than happy with her presence. cloaked in bister and accented in paler colouration, the girl glared at mona in a way she was not accustomed when it came to children.
"i'm mona. what's your name?" the firebrand inquired gently. the child was a pretty thing, fierce; she wanted to know why such annoyance thrummed in the small body.

Mona.

Much to Deshyr's quite visible chagrin, she could find nothing terrible— nothing monstrous— about the scarlet caregiver before her. Not the name given to her, or the tone with which it had been given; not her brilliant coloration or her equally as enchanting eyes.

The girl looked embarrassed then. She was in the presence of a Disney Princess and had branded herself a fairy-tale antagonist: the portentous native with her nose upturned to the kind, destitute aliens. As much as she wanted to hate this wolf and shove her in a box of things she had chosen over her short life to naively disavow, her own resolve on the matter crumbled as guilt made the fledgling Frostfur view herself, for the first time, in an unpleasant light.

Junior! She wanted to introduce herself proudly— she could see herself standing there, chin up and chest out— but all that bubbled up from beneath crumpled ears and an apologetic aversion of blue-gem eyes, was a meek and regrettable: "Deshyr."

delighted to have ended the roil of anger as soon as it began, mona drew an easier breath and swayed her tail affably. "deshyr is a very pretty name, for a very pretty girl." idly, she wondered if the pup belonged to terance; after scolding herself for thinking of him, when the seawolf continued to walk in her thoughts, mona set about bolstering the girl once more.
"i'm fairly new, and i don't know my way around. do you think you could give me a tour?" the little mayfair inquired hopefully. learn more about the hollow, bond with the child, stretch her legs — she hoped deshyr would oblige, and fancied the pup was a princess of some sort.

Mona is pretty! Deshyr wanted to return—feeling as though she must somehow return the good feeling just doled out to her—but residual shame had by now turned into shyness, and her eager-to-please disposition became rattled by new and rising insecurities. Her response to the compliment wound up being an embarrassed sort of smile, paired with a meek wagging of her tail.

Thankfully, she didn't need to find a way to recover from her awkward silence, as the scarlet she-wolf asked to be shown a lay of Hollow's lands. Deshyr hesitated to answer. She hated the Hollow, so how did she be pleasant about it? "Well, I don't think there's a lot to see," she admitted at length, her tone thoughtful and her face scrunched up as she tried not to fail her company too much. "It's not tall here like at The Sunspire, so there's not a good view or anything..." she trailed off.

Then her face lit up, as something "brilliant" occurred to her, and she gushed: "oh! There is this one really cool spot, though—d'you wanna see it?" Excitedly, she began to lead Mona into the thick-north of the territory, almost too excited to look and see if the emerald-eyed sylph followed.

simply relieved to have ended the brief tension between she and deshyr, mona nodded excitedly. "yes, of course!" the child was very pretty; mona wondered again if she had been sired by the quiet dark brute, but decided it did not matter. deshyr was a member of the hollow, therefore the young mayfair's ward insofar as she remained in mona's company.
"i went to the sunspire just one time," the redfurred woman mused aloud. "it was very tall! i am used to being on the ground. i think i prefer it that way. what do you think, deshyr? do you miss it? murkwater eyes glowed with some concern; was being in the hollow as much of an adjustment for the child as it had been for her?