Phoenix Maplewood and way down we go

Panic had been sitting in her chest since the moment the stranger approached but she was heated and so was Siarut. She doesn’t need to understand every word out of the strangers mouth (she might have understood more if they’d slow down a little) to know they are in danger. They can’t stay any longer in the maplewood at this point, regardless of what happens. Their safety has been compromised with the pack wolves aware of their little band. The pack wolves are outnumbered at the moment but they’re healthier and have others to come to their aid.

Shivali is about to open her mouth and say something, the new male speaking up over her. One ear flicks back to acknowledge a new presence in the form of her sister and the one with the pet bird. She doesn’t do anything else to include them, focused on the pair ahead. Her chest tightens and she feels her feet wanting to flee, but not wanting to expose her children to threatening wolves she doesn’t know. Nervously, she licks her lips and looks away and toward Siarut and cringes at the anger on his face.

“Let’s just go. It’s okay, we need to get the children out of here,” she pleads to her brother, hoping to pull him out of his stupor. The journey has been hard on him, on all of them, but he’s been coming undone and it makes her stomach churn. She wants it to be over. Quickly, she turns to the pair to see two children step up—young, older than hers, but still babies—and she sighs, swallowing a hard lump in her throat. “Please,” she begs, before turning back toward the pack wolves. “Nightfall we leave,” she says with uncertainty, her confidence in the common tongue of the wilds apparent. “Please, we travel from far,” she adds, looking toward the brute that is much calmer than the female, hoping he’ll see how ragged and tired they’ve become and little of a threat are to them.