Ouroboros Spine lxiii. if i said i'd be good would you even believe me?

posting with permission since it seems he's going to be accepted into MG. @Makan

The cloudberry's children had been warned away from her hearth -- for a time. It had grown still and quiet there, without the boisterous presence of six teenagers. She found she missed the chatter and the flutter of sign language moving from her youngest's paws. 

The shadow was not a man to fear. He had been a good guest, this was how Lótë viewed him. He was no more captive than she. He was not as the boy Nuak had been, not a prisoner. The obsidian he-wolf was quiet, he cowered more often than not. 

The doe approached him as she often would upon returning to her ulaq in the evenings. She dropped a piece of game, a quail, at his paws and retreated from the man as one would a wounded animal. Settling on bear-marked haunches near her bedfurs, the herd-stalker observed him. 

Breaking tradition, Lótë spoke up in soft tones -- reluctant to frighten the skittish raven. 

"Do you speak the common tongue?"