The Sentinels birds flying high

The soot-stockinged rogue went briefly cyanotic as her beloved big brother caught her up in a rib-cracking embrace, driving the air bodily from her lungs. She adored him — and although her love for Dagfinn was different, as every individual love should be, what she felt for the great ruddy bear was just as potent and singular in its own right. She listened with rapt attention, her silver eyes bright, and her coal-painted tail waved in a wide, scythelike arc behind her as her brother described the forest and its inhabitants. Her muzzle wrinkled, not with ire but in consternation, as she blurted a question. “What of their warriors?” she asked innocently. Was Lærke the last hope of this place? It was good, then, that he’d come! She nudged him eagerly, nose to chin, as she’d done so many times as a puppy.

“You say they are beautiful yet leave so much out!” she whined plaintively, flopping unceremoniously to her side in the moss and loam to shove her paws at him in protest. Her eyes glinted wickedly as she bounded to her feet in the next instant, a mischievous grin pulling gleefully at the alluring corners of her lips. “Kuinka voit kutsua itseäsi bardi, pitää salaisuuksia näin?” she teased. She backed away from him, one heavy paw snaking out, its aim to lightly cuff his broad shoulder. “I am pleased to be here,” she countered in her rich, velvety alto. The truth of her statement shone in her bright mercury eyes as she regarded Lærke with gentle affection. She was the younger sibling, but there was something maternal in the way she looked him over, checking for any wounds or mishaps that had befallen his person — not that the chocolate-furred behemoth would have felt them. “Oletko nähnyt meidän sisaruksia?”