Hushed Willows As the smile fell from your face, I fell with it

A rustling overhead drew Prialux's gaze back from the mud to the sky, and she spotted a shining bird's tail disappear into the foliage. "Hi!" she yelled at it, but once more, she received no response. Her features drooped into sadness and her brows crumpled over dejected eyes. She got enough of it from her mother, and it stung to get it from other animals, as well. She was far too young to know that other animals simply couldn't easily understand her or reply to her. She expected them to pay attention to here like her brothers did.

She returned to squelching the mud with her feet, only to look up a third time to see a larger, spindlier wolf stooping to drop a flower on the ground. Her mouth hung agape as she glanced between the flower and Tambourine, attempting to put together the puzzle pieces of this interaction. She stilled her tongue from saying hi this time, having already drawn a connection between saying it and being ignored, but when Tambourine spoke to her specifically, her huge ears flared and she beamed and all thoughts of having been ignored were forgotten. She recognized the name "Kavos", but all else was lost on her, and she was too excited to pay much attention anyway.

Prialux leapt to her feet with a surprising amount of agility for a one-month old pup, then screamed at the top of her lungs a joyful, "HI!"