Deepwood Weald i kissed a frog at midnight so he sang me a lullaby

Marruz was not used to such cordiality. He cast his indigo gaze skeptically at the brute and traced the velvety stains encircling his nape. His tail flicked uncertainly; quietly rustling at the crisp undergrowth of the forest floor. 

For a moment he wasn't sure how to respond. He hated this. Everything about the situation was uncomfortable and so very unfamiliar. So, he kept his mouth shut for the longest time possible. Not an inch of his emotions leaked, but for the furrowing of his brow in minute pace atop his unwavering orbs. He stared hard at the moon and the belt of Orion, imagining that time had only skipped in heartbeats and he was just a couple of moons old. Imagined that this deferential wolf beside him was the wolf that sent him here. Imagined that he did not tremor.

"I know," Marruz finally muttered, scrunching his nose as though he detested the flavor of the statement. He then stood and shook out his Stygian pelt, stretching willowy pegs with decided grain. When he was content, he drew himself to his full height and faced the male in that laconic manner of his. He blinked and curtly dipped his head, gritting his teeth as he did so and not entirely certain why he felt obliged to do it at all. 

"You're welcome," he grunted. "I'm surprised you digested all of that... I would have thought the hare more apt for the job." And this was the closest the boy had come to a compliment in his short expanse of sunrises.