The Tangle when you grow older and all those boys grow tired of you

Mallaidh goes back in, weaseling her away until she sees a blur of red swinging dramatically from right side up to upside down. “Oh!” she blurts, startled, “wh-what did you do?” She can’t help but laugh as it bellows out of her, somehow carefree and lost in the scene played out before her. Her leader, from one pack to another, stands… no, hangs from dangers of the tangle.

“Okay, um, this might hurt,” she says, moving around and putting her two front paws on the log so she can reach at the vines. Easily, she snaps through one section of vines that entrap one limb and then, when she reaches the second, she frees it quickly but not before the rest of them snap, sending her friend all the way to the ground in a thud. “Sorry, you can’t really move too fast if you don’t know what you’re doing,” she tells her with a smirk, stepping over the brush and brushing her nose against Blixen’s cheek before nudging her and urging her to come along.

Once she helps her up, she stays in place so she can better instruct her.

“So, when you take a step, you gotta move lightly. You pay attention to how it feels. If it tightens around your paws, it’s gonna get you,” she explains as if the place is a living, breathing thing. In a way, it is, and if she can show the others how to get around as she can, they may enjoy it here after all.