Ouroboros Spine pharmaka

Aya, the woman called out with a cluck of her tongue, both sounds startling the boy immensely. He lifted his lip so that his front teeth were exposed to light then thought better of it, and snaked his tongue across his nose after. It had the sense of someone being bashful over their own timidity. Her voice wasn't barbed like the red girl's, as incongruent as the ghost woman's, or even as unnerving as the king of the bears himself; something new floated here that did not make sense to the boy.

I will feed you again, she offered — promised? — and as much as the boy wanted to believe her, he couldn't, not entirely. His guard was up. He was well fortified against tricks, he thought, and strong enough now to take on one woman if she were to come after him — kindness, though, had no place in the schema of his being.

A part of him wanted to ask why. That ultimately did not matter to him, though. She could have offered him anything, said anything, promised him the world, and he would still be as unwilling to trust her as he was of anyone. The fact he had taken food from her and not been harmed was a plus; he saw her as someone to use, and as she wasn't attacking him outright for his presence here, the boy thought that this was an opportunity for an easy meal.

That and, she could not be trusted. Someone must have been waiting in the wings. The longer he lingered there with her the more the boy could discern of the scents around himself and he knew now, this woman was not alone at all. Her scent was everywhere. To show he would not be leaving, he sank to his haunches; his tattered ears began to pivot like radar dishes to every sound upon the mountain — but his shrewd dark eyes lingered upon her - nervously defiant.