King Elk Forest (brave as a noun)

a blush creeps across him, caught out. "okay thanks anyway," he mutters under his breath, petulant in his embarrassment. though the wisp agrees with her sentiment, he wonders at the formality of her tone. maybe he is wrong about their relationship - surely his girlfriend wouldn't speak of him so .. boring-ly, but then again, maybe she's faking it to throw him off. or maybe she's just like that and who's he to judge. (he's delight. of course he's here to judge.)

 more importantly, and embarrassingly, the astute woman seems to have picked up on his tone. he sits, looking anywhere but at her face. a slicker wolf could lie or mask his feelings, but delight was still pretty childish, after all. "sort of, though it's not - worry exactly. i've just seen things go pretty bad before. it's hard to not expect the worst?" he's edging around it, minding the fresh wounds. "i'm just keeping an eye on everything s'all."