Herbalists' Cache touch

Coelacanth allowed the tension to melt from her tiny body tick by slow tick, but the instinctive urge to guard herself — to flee — was difficult to quell. The gray ghost smiled, a nervous flicker of his curving lips, and bowed good-naturedly before her with a quizzical cant of his head — he wanted to play. Tufted ears fluttered uncertainly, fanning forward upon the inkdark ingénue’s finely-crafted skull as the very tip of her feathered tail began to wriggle, but she was always one beat behind. Seelie’s lithe musculature stretched forward timorously to mirror the scarred phantom’s playful posture, graceful topline curving into an exaggerated tilde, but her Neptune eyes were wide and inquisitive rather than half-lidded and eager.

It was a curious state of affairs. Normally Coelacanth loved to play — would engage in it without hesitation — but everything had happened so fast. The charred remains of Donnelaith — Doe, beloved and dearly missed, in a puddle on the rocky shore — Szymon, angry with her, scoring the unsullied flesh of her flank with his fangs — as much as the little Groenendael wanted to please the stranger, she simply didn’t feel comfortable engaging in play with him. An airy, toneless whine danced upon her lips as she regarded her agemate with a beseeching gaze and a coquettish tilt of her head. She wanted so badly to befriend him — to reach a point where touch would be a delight for both of them — and would do her best to warm to him.

Straightening, she backed away from the silver ghost and gestured to the snail shell beneath the ice with a soft whuff and a quirk of her tapered muzzle. “Look at this!” bespoke the renewed vigor that caused her catlike paws to shimmy and her plumed tail to wave. Then, a little more cautiously, she reached into her bowl and plucked out a few berries coated slickly in ice; these she nosed toward the boy with an encouraging air.