Barrow Fields put me on the front line leave me with a dumb mind

the tension held in her chest expounded as the thing flopped again, the ropy strands flinging on the ground. its tail -- or what she assumed was the approximation of a tail -- moved, rattling like seashells dragged over stone.

ava took another step back. it spoke again, prompting ava to circle wide around him. she could understand what he said, but he was so alien from anything she had ever known that not even his sweet voice could lull the mounting suspicion lodged against her breast.

because he was different, ava did not know if it was safe to be near him. he could be sick - or maybe a horrible curse converted him from once-wolf to whatever this was. ava, possessing no faculty in which to ask him these things, began to make a wide berth away from him.

she would watch him for a time, but never let her guard down.