Lone Star Mountain i asked your name, you asked the time

y’all

 
Little did Eleuthera know, but her explorations and relative peace were about to uprooted and tossed aside as if they were weeds in her mothers’ gardens. Luckily, she was not aware of such happenings just yet! For the moment, the lilac girl was content to lazily explore and enjoy the sensation of earth underfoot and woodland scents in her nose. Eleuthera wondered if she might hunt, for the small creatures had grown plump from winter’s early preparations, or test her mountaineer’s feet upon new elevations. In the end those turned out to be nothing more than inane musings, and Eleuthera continued on.

That was, until she heard a shout from behind her. Instead of fleeing from the sudden fright of it, the pearl’s entire body seized up and froze immediately; perhaps an unintentional teaching from her mothers, both of whom had encouraged this behavior on several of her most frightful moments. She braced herself for something, then closed her eyes and tried her best to be an invisible presence which could evade detection… but when nothing came nearer to her or even addressed her directly, Eleuthera loosened her posture enough to shoot a glare of red-hot pointy daggers over her shoulder, at the two voyeurs.

Eleuthera drew a deep, audible breath through her nostrils and prepared to give her admonishing statement — 

but she was approached by yet another! This time, a fox. Now, this was the first time that Eleuthera had ever encountered a fox, so this was something entirely new to her. Had she been younger, she might have been struck by the subtle resemblance of a fox to a coyote or bobcat [which had afflicted her childhood with their evils not once but twice], but by now Eleuthera had grown into her adult figure and, anyways, this fox didn’t seem to entertain any cruel intentions. Not now, at least. 

“What —” the lilac girl asked quietly as the flame-kissed creature said something about climbing volcanos. Then, remembering the two strangers to her rear, Eleuthera shuffled into a quarter turn and, all red-hot pointy daggers again, repeated her inquiry “What?” and waited exasperatedly for someone else to make sense of this for her.