Wapun Meadow Plates and Saucers

"nasty little bastards," merrick chuffed in solidarity, clucking over her bulbous tongue and swollen face. her eyes, haunted by the sudden pain, fell to his own, and he stretched a thin veneer of worry across the analyzing snake in his mind.
"you know, we have an excellent medic," merrick purred, thinking not of the medicine den, but the bone-tomb of dried femurs and skulls and teeth that his queen kept. "and places to be out of the rain. you don't want to stay here in the mud, do you?" merrick urged, circling the velveteen maiden once more with a gesture toward the gates of ursus, across the meadow.