Redtail Rise sonata

He thought he might not find her. Then Ashlar saw her appear, eventually, beneath the branches of a tree. She didn't approach immediately, so he closed only a bit of the distance, then smiled and bowed a bit with an inviting air. I was going to look for frogs in the shallows. Do you want to come? He used to love chasing frogs as a child. He would end the day filthy and exhausted, drenched in mud from the pond's bank back home, but he could hardly remember having so much fun doing anything else besides singing. There were no ponds here like the one he'd had as a child, but Ashlar hoped that the river would work. He would find place where the shallows were larger and the water was caught still, allowing them to spawn.

He could not outright ask her if anything was bothering her. But if he drew her into play, perhaps he could ask some things and they would not be seen as questions so difficult to answer.