Her smile was soft and gentle in her expression as she watched him, eyes coasting across his own as she selfishly memorized his features to heart. He was a good-looking man, kind and charming, and a welcomed relief from her days of hunting monsters and murderers and threads of her own fleeting life. It is a shame I hadn’t seen you before, She murmured in kind, but I am glad to have met you now.

Her tail swayed easily behind her, an idle swing as she brought her attention to his. However, his use of a particular pet name hadn’t gone unnoticed. ’Princess,’ he had said, and for a brief moment, Alue’s world stilled. How…How had he known? Her heart dropped to her throat, and her stomach lurched in quiet retaliation as his pleasant laugh rolled like wine from between his lips.

Alue subconsciously followed suit.

Her own laugh was perhaps a touch strained as she played off her distress through an amicable smile and a calculated tail wag. Did he…know she was living a double life? Did he know who she truly was? No, impossible!

Play it cool, Alue.

Daring tales, you say? She added with a quick flick of an ear, My skin is thicker than it looks, Alue assured the man, and I would be honored to hear some of those adventures of yours.

Despite the anxiety that gripped her flanks or the fear that simmered within her blood, Alue continued her pace beside the man—her smile never dropping as he spoke warmly. Perhaps he did not know who she was. Maybe it had been merely a pet name he had conjured up absentmindedly and without thinking about what it could mean.

She liked those thoughts better than the potential reality.

Tarot’s voice drove her out of her reverie and back toward the waking world as she twisted a glance his way. A laugh bubbled from her lips, and she could not help but nod. If only you will do the same to mine, in return, she quipped back—far too quickly for her to take back.

Her steps trailed beside his own while Alue’s attention focused on a running stream’s quiet notes. It gurgled proudly between the walls of their tree-like tunnel and sang an idyllic song that lured her paws to the front of their never-ending path. Do you hear that? She asked Tarot with a quick backward glance.

And just as her eyes were to coast back to the front, the sight of the hare was a fleeting image before her. One moment there, staring at them, with the largest feet Alue had ever seen—the next, gone. His steps marked prints in the softer earth, guiding them forward and towards the bubbling noise.