Skill: Bonereader 1/5

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She'd retired from Ruathar's presence when the cold crept in. The subtle smell of flowers clung to her pelt, pollen painting vague shapes in stark dances across her fur. She was not so normally perturbed, but it was something about his presence—the words he uttered—that struck her and stuck beneath her skin.

Confusion and excuses bled together until neither one could make headway, further throwing her down a hill of questions she couldn't find her way back up against. A clatter of bones at her feet stalled hesitant steps as they collided with a muddied puddle.

An ear flicked at the whispers that erupted, the hum of something just scraping across the ground as the ripples settled. Oblivious to anything at her back, careless to anything at her sides, and utterly devoid of caution for what lurked beyond her sight, Twyla was immobile. Struck by the sense of ease that came from her mistake. An answer beneath all her questions.

Widened eyes and a curious nose glided across the slick surface of bone, furrowed brows attempting—and perhaps seemingly failing—as she tried to discern whatever message was meant for her within a sporadic form of nature and coincidence.

indeed, lurking just beyond sight; a pair of yellow eyes, gleaming with ill intent. häti hunkers down in the brush, eyeing the stranger with curiosity. for a time she sits still, waiting, jaws parted to taste for fear-scent. finding none and thus deeming the stranger safe enough, she skulks with lowered body from her hiding place.

creeping, creeping, creeping.

until she is less than a hair's breadth from the stranger's hip, peering between sinewy forelimbs. then, haughtily, she speaks. "you waitin' for that thing to roll over? hate to break it to you, wolf, but i think it's already dead." nostrils flare, inhaling as if to be certain. "yep. dead."

Skill: Bonereader 2/5

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Twyla was not the most esteemed of hunters, but even she could feel herself being watched. Her paws shifted the bones around at her feet while the trees shuddered with every passing wind, it was almost as if she could feel like wayward calling like a holler. Echoing, echoing, echoing. She was almost startled by the voice that erupted, thinking the trees had finally managed to find their voice amidst the temporary quiet.

For a second, Twyla was spent trying to find the source of the voice, peering around her shoulders and past the small shrubs. Even a moment was taken to press her ear to the pile of bones at her feet, curiousness and wonder dissipating as she locked eyes with a wiry thing.

Are spirits. Her lips spread into a soft, amused grin as she lifted her head and side-stepped to see the creature fully. In the bones, dirt. Lost or important, Twyla has learned. A single claw traced the small bones, another offering to be made should she be asked.

They give wise. In the way they were thrown, the markings that grooved the polish, or even the creature they came from. All signs, all means of communication from a form far greater than the two who spoke of them now.