Grouse Thicket roll for initiative

She tipped her chin up--indulgent in the sardonic praise that he did not believe she would fail. I won't fail, she reiterated to him, a lopsided smirk painting her lips. The stakes are too high.

He moved from her--correcting her, and she felt a light scoff escape her lips. You hurt others and so you cannot feel the hurt yourself?

She sidled back--allowing him his space. Diminutive in her mannerism--fond of the man before her and thus respecting his desired space. Time for a lesson, I suppose, she murmured. Like many youth, she remained hesitant to fully believe the experienced and worldly adult.

"now that is a lesson i cannot teach."

he did not want her invested in his pain, nor him as an individual. let her bright eyes turn for a future she could scarcely wait to experience.

let him pass from her mind.

it seemed her fascination was not due to end. he stretched his limbs and glanced skyward to a descending sun. it occurred to germanicus that he might ask where she meant to lay her head tonight.

but that would stand against her sense of independence. "rain will come before the evening."

He made to redirect her attention and so she humored him. Gaze drifting upward, she looked to the sky--a view she found herself more raptly in love with after her brief stint in the thick foliage of bramble and thorns.

So it will, she agreed quietly, sidestepping from him then. His intent seemed to drift toward words and conversation that would bring this interlude to an end--and she would not hold him back from where he wished to be.

Thank you for the meal and good humor, she offered, the flash of a smile given before she looked back to the thicket.

"well met, mirwen."

his head dipped, and if she looked back just at that moment, she might see him tying the acorn into the fur of his shoulder where it would remain until its strap broke.

there was nowhere he wished to be. germanicus had only become artful in rebuffing all save his sons and daughter.

if he regretted turning mirwen away, it would not show. the eagle was soon gone from sight, back among the trees.