Heron Lake Plateau The Elgar Cello Concerto- but not Yo Yo Ma's version.

*glomps both, and attempts to drag Owen out from his bush by the tail*

There was a particularly pokey branch that was jabbing him in the shoulder in the exact same place as Niamh had a moment ago, only much less comfortingly and in fact rather stabbily opposite of that. Owen shifted over, and then shuffled his position a bit more to peek out upside-down under his belly. He really didn't know about this whole following-the-responsible-adult's-lead business, especially when Niamh now appeared to be... trying to play with the creature?! What?!

A stupefied Owen gawked at the pair of them, taking note of how the long stick-legged creature could almost but not quite speak properly like a wolf, and finding himself somewhat impressed as well as boggled by its deceptiveness. This world was just packed full of all sorts of bizarre and otherworldly creatures, wasn't it. Owen quietly mimicked the "o" shapes he thought his mouth would have to make, to make noises like those with ordinary words. Weird. And well, despite its initial thundering pace, the hairy malformed beast now seemed to be responding almost sanely to Niamh, and not trying to eat her at all, after all. Hhhhuh. Its tongue lolled from its mouth to an almost grotesque length, and caught Owen's eye as it bobbed there midair.

Despite the length of its legs, the almost-canine creature was apparently not part rabbit... nor did it seem to be allied with the birds, some of which Owen knew perfectly well had legs just as long or longer than the speedy lagomorphs', given the native inhabitants of their local lake. What the heck was it then, though? Owen had never seen anything like it. And Niamh didn't seem nervous at all anymore, from the way she was acting, so whatever this monstrous beast was it obviously wasn't the dread creature all the adults had been fearing an invasion from all along. Owen decided it was safe enough after all to rearrange his pose and—while still carefully keeping his body contained within the prickly-leafed and rough-barked branches' embrace, uncomfortable though that still was—poke his nose out just far enough to get a little better sniff of this freakish stilt-legged thing that was trying to interrogate Niamh. And then maybe play with her. And then maybe eat her afterwards still, who knew. Stay back—yeah, that Owen could do, at least.