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A child? She had called him a child.
A woman draped in white, a snowy owl etched with scars—ghostly remnants of the epic from which she’d probably emerged.
The young man—the boy—cleared his throat, quietly struck by the presence she commanded. Though tall, it was not her height that made her formidable, but the sheer force of her aura: dominant, untamed, irrepressibly wild.

A man. I’m a man! He straightened, head held high, tail arched proudly above his haunches. There was arrogance in it, and fervor too—that blind confidence of youth, untested by the true weight of life.
And I wasn’t pouting! he added sharply, a detail that, to him, mattered deeply.

I—… The boy with the black-tipped ears fumbled for words. An excuse, perhaps. An explanation to offer the white-cloaked inquisitor.

No. I won't chase it.But nothing came, so he settled for the truth. I’m alone. They’re far away now. That big elk would’ve torn me in half! It had to be acknowledged. You didn’t survive at that age, alone, by charging in blindly—or by failing to respect your own boundaries.

I guess you would’ve taken him down in one bite, huh? There it was again—that flicker of arrogance, still clinging to the edges of a boyish voice. A half-smile tugged at his lips, eyes glinting with mischief. Cleverness, or the illusion of it. But beneath the smirk, something softer stirred: a glimmer of admiration, the curiosity of one who longed to know.
What could this wild woman do?
Could she bring down an elk?
Slice through a bear?
Hold her ground against cougars?