Arrow Lake and my words are forever, my blanket, my shiver

Thankfully, she’d been seated awhiles enough away from not-Verx that when the  ( quite literally )  bone-splintering sound of femur on stone clacked through the air, it drew her attention more than the actual-Verx in that moment. Ears pressed back into her ruff as she flinched — but as not-Verx hastened away, the silver wobbled to her paws, then, and gave an investigative sniff to the femur.

Pink nose remained pressed to it for a moment, brow furrowing in bewilderment above heavy eyes. Was that... Verx’s scent? Several squints and blinks followed her slow thoughts, and with an achy yawn  ( breathy enough to notice )  rose back up and seated herself right back down, staring all thoughtful at her paws. If the femur smelled like Verx... and if that voice had been his... then...

Who the hell had she been slurring to all this time? ”V-Verx?! Wh—“ What the hell—

Only half-awake, she whirled her head about wildly, eyes wide and hazy with sleep — not opiates, as one would think — for the not one, but two Verxs who had been here a moment before. Eyes landed on the greater, more hulking figure, and she rose unsteadily, about to follow—

—but kept herself near the den  ( as she ought to be )  head alit with vertigo of fatigue. The... femur had been for the children, right...? After a long lapse of jumbled thoughts, she managed to slur loud enough, ”Imssorr-y!” to the actual-Verx who’d brought it along. But she stayed rooted where she was at the thicket; near, as she ought to be, and still very much bewildered with how the evening’d turned out.