Porcupine Ridge wizened and weary

She steeled herself against his compliment, smiling through the unobserved pain. She didn't let her affect it as much. Her worries had been driven towards new discoverings about herself, and her nightmares were now less about the crushing waves, but about unwanted bloodshed and pain. She set her paw down lightly in thought, and when the sharp ache from the bitemarks there returned at the applied pressure, she was successfully reminded of the price for true pack mentality. The monarchy she had been raised under was nothing like this—and instinct was dictating her more than feeling. This was perhaps what bothered her most.

Not how much she missed her family. But how different she was without them. Who was she anymore? "Lovely," Novak called her then, and surprised eyes turned to him as she almost thought he had read her mind. Her mouth was slightly open, but she eased the aghast expression away, and an implied blush shrouded her features instead. "S-Sir Novak, you flatter me!" she blustered, angling her muzzle towards her shoulder and incidentally reverting to the titles of the Cove.

Shyly, Diane untucked her muzzle, tilting her head at him slightly. "I bet Anwyl is just as chivalrous, which is why Jhala likes him. Are you always so gallant?"