The Heartwood the wolf and the lion

Rickon couldn't smell much in this place, but his ears began to twitch as they picked up on the quick footfalls of company approaching. He couldn't drag himself away from the investigation long enough to look, however, and he was being addressed before he even realized someone had come upon him. He looked up sharply, angling his head towards what he thought at first was an apparition. Against the charred horizon, the soft and blanched creature appeared as something otherworldly, causing him to wonder briefly if this was the ghost of the poor animal at his feet.

Eventually, after gaping he began to acknowledge that she was something corporeal, rather than a specter, and by this time, a long pause had come after her chipper attention to him. "N-no!" he blanched, remembering that he was supposed to respond. "I mean, uh, *ahem* no, no I didn't do this," Rickon cleared his throat, and dropped an octave from his originally prepubescent tone, trying to maintain some semblance of maturity under the tangerine gaze of a pretty face. While she beamed as the sun, Rickon felt more like an awkward little storm cloud passing across her clear skies. He looked a little bewildered even, but maybe that was because she'd used a word he didn't recognize.

"What... what's a dragon?"