roar like an open fire

She returned his smile automatically when he asked if she'd been keeping an eye on him. "Oh, it's my job I suppose. I'm one of Celestial's warriors, so I am on the borders more often than not. I take note of whose scents show up most often, in case they have bad intentions. Do you have bad intentions?" she added teasingly, though her smile faded around the edges. What was she looking for out here? There was no more for her outside of the pack than there was inside the pack. Lanse was gone, she was alone. It didn't matter where she was, she couldn't escape that. "Maybe you are exactly what I was looking for." The words should have come out teasingly, playfully, an extension of polite friendly banter, but they just came out low and faintly huskily, the pain of grief held hidden but for the distance in her crystalline gaze, as though she were seeing something different than what could be found before her. Seeing what had been, not what was. Oh, if only she could, for just a little while, forget what she had lost, forget the pain and the grief and the loneliness. Pretend that none of it had ever happened, lose herself in distraction. Her breath puffed out in a quiet, soft sigh of words that echoed her thoughts. "A distraction, I suppose. A way to forget."