Ravensblood Forest the one minute. the soldier's minute

The soot-stockinged rogue had emerged from the shelter of the sequoias just before daybreak, her sights set upon the mountain over which the sun rose each morning. She wanted to fight the push of gravity against her limbs, wanted to feel the bite of the gravelly crags as they scraped her restless paws. A life of peace and pacifism was all well and good, but with little outlet for her fiery spirit, the battle-whetted bard found herself itching for a new challenge. The urge was intensely felt and immediately obeyed — Lotte was a creature of desire and intuition, and she had learned to let those impulses drive and guide her. Long, powerful legs quickened into an ambling trot, moving fluidly, the flex and snap of her large paws soundless as a ghost. She leapt nimbly along the mountain’s base, weaving her way amongst its cracked earth skirts, always moving vaguely upward — but nearby movement caught her attention and she veered recklessly off course, peering downward from her vantage point at a very familiar-looking pair of mocha shoulders edged in accents of vanilla latte.

Cocking her head to the side, “And what did that poor tree ever do to you, herra?” she called out playfully in a bright, mischievous mezzo-soprano several tones above her natural speaking voice. Lotte, so accustomed to playing roles when telling stories or entertaining her siblings, found herself slipping into Kitku’s skin; Chusi’s guardian had liked the wolf he’d met beside the sea, so she would be that wolf in his presence. The young bard could see no harm in continuing the ruse — she would play whatever part was required of her, whether it was specifically requested or self-inflicted. She reasoned that she was doing it for Donnelaith’s sake, never stopping to think that her supple legs would ever get caught in webs of her own making. Her steel-trap mind could house a whole cast of characters for her to pluck and play. Settling down into a sphinx-like position, she draped her coal-colored paws over the rocky outcropping she perched upon, looking coquettishly down at the fiery-eyed male with bright silver eyes.