I Don't Want To Be Alone [Eve]

Lydia recoiled a bit as the woman licked a clump of snow off her back.  She was touched by the gesture but having been on her own for awhile she wasn't quite sure what to make from the sudden contact and the almost… motherly touch that made her heart ache for times long past. "Oh no, it's alright.  I should pay more attention to my surroundings." She really should have.  If Jaelle had been a crueler woman Lydia could have been hurt very badly.  She wasn't really a fighter and wouldn't have been able to defend herself as well as others in her pack could.  Her former pack.

She giggled at the stoat as he lunched forward but she skittered back all the same.  She didn't want anyone chewing on her toes.  Even if he was a little cutie!  She cocked her head as she glanced at Jaelle.  "Pets?  What is a pet?"  Already this new land seemed so strange and foreign.  Wolves and stoats, cloth and twinkling sounds.  "Those are really pretty, Jaelle."  She gestured to the bells the woman wore. "I've never seen anything like them, what are they?"

She felt questions bubbling up inside her and it was a struggle to keep them in check.  Where was this woman from, where did she get these strange things, why did she wear them, did it hinder her hunting, on and on and on.  She thought it curious the stoat was named Goat and she found the rhyme amusing but his words would cause her to gaze questioningly at Jaelle as he insisted he wasn't a pet.  Whatever a pet was.  Jaelle explained that they were traveling companions.

"Oh!  So… like a friend?  Or a partner like a symbiotic relationship?  You each do things for each other as a part of a deal?"