Sleeping Dragon Summoning the Kraken

She was relieved when Niamh finished eating and straightened up to look at her. The girl's answer took her slightly off guard, and she blinked at her, surprised. . .and impressed. "You just live on your own, without any family or friends?" Lily asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth without much thought. "Wow, that's really brave of you!" Her voice was bubbly, but incredibly sincere.

She gestured with her head down the mountain, to the north. "I live at the edge of that forest with my friends," she explained, looking back at Niamh. "We're kind of a pack now. Everyone's really nice. Before that, I lived with my parents on the prairie." The twinge of homesickness in her belly when mentioning her family, though small, was still there.

"How long have you been out on your own?" she queried, tilting her head to one side in curiosity. Lily had barely lasted half a moon; she couldn't imagine being solo long-term. No wonder this girl was wolfing--no pun intended, the writer insists--down her meals.