Bearclaw Valley pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers

he looked around before turning his gaze back to her and she found it suffocating.  she could not express to him that she was worried that this was an elaborate trap of some sort, that he would lead her somewhere under the guise of friendship and the redleaf girls would round on her and he would do nothing other than stand back and watch... though, she did not believe that to be the case.

she's just cautious after everything.  she did not know what had caused her to draw the short stick so often in life and she'd become jaded even towards those who resided in the valley's encompassing walls.

she felt the warmth of his tongue draw against her muzzle before he receded, and she appreciated the space he allowed to her to have even though she knew that he desired to touch her, to grip her with white knuckles and gritted teeth lest she slip from his grasp again and succumb to the horrors of the world.

he led her at a pace she could be comfortable with towards the heart of the valley and the further they went in the more she bristled and fret over their visibility.  finally he slowed, and showed her an area that meant nothing to her.

but it seemed to mean something to him, which of course meant that it would come to mean something to her.  catlike, she rubbed herself against the flourishing evergreen as he stood in awe of this hallowed ground, and as he spoke she returned to his side.

his words (though as always, she did not understand them) were full of emotion, choked, and her tongue flit out and brushed his chin until he started to dig.  she watched him for a moment.

she had never really appreciated him from this angle, the rippling muscles beneath his dense alabaster pelage, the slow sway of his tail as he worked.  when she finished looking, she turned her dull claws to the protesting earth and begun to dig mechanically.