Blacktail Deer Plateau blue sky black death

Atticus didn't seem ready to tell her what to do, though he heavily implied his preference. Perhaps another pup might have felt uncomfortable with it, yet it merely delighted young Bones. He wanted her! Really, she didn't care about any other details at the moment. That Atticus wanted to be part of her life, to step up as her father, made her giddy. If she died right now—the victim of a freak brain aneurysm, perhaps—she would die happy.

"Okay!" she agreed readily and rather thoughtlessly, though she would tuck his words away into her mind and heart for later perusal. "I wish it wasn't so dark!" she complained next, without missing a beat. "I want to go look at the plateau and meet everybody! I bet you can't see anything and that everybody's in bed." Again, her face fell.

But frowns never lingered long on Bones's lips. Smiling broadly again the next moment, the juvenile planted her rear end firmly on the ground and declared, "Let's play Twenty Questions!" It would be the perfect way to get to know each other a little bit, she thought, and she was glad to have this time alone with him before they wandered forth into the world as father and daughter. "You start!"