The Ghosts of Beverly Drive
She saw the immediate change in his demeanor once she made her offer. He spoke a full sentence without stuttering once, and for a moment, she was almost impressed. There was a hint of life in his eyes, but as he rose to stand, and she was able to further assess his current health, she wondered if he would even be capable of keeping up with her. She still had much traveling she wanted to do before she picked a place to settle, and in his current state, he didn’t look like he’d be able to walk more than a mile without falling over dead. It would be nice to have a healer on hand, but she wouldn’t alter her plans to accommodate his poor health if it began to slow him down.
His next words only proved to back track on any progress he’d seemed to make only moments before. Irritation rose in her chest and she bit back the urge to snap at him as she waited for him to figure out whatever it was he was struggling with. Surely her name wasn’t that difficult to comprehend. He spat out the word stupid, and for a moment she thought he might had been saying it to her, but before she had time to react, his ears dropped against his head and his eyes shut. He was speaking to himself. Her ear twitched with impatience as he began to sound out her name and she waited for him to finish before she spoke again. “You’ll need to work on your speech. I don’t have time to sit around all day waiting for you to figure out what it is you’re trying to say.”
She turned and began to move out of the gorge, expecting him to follow. “I’d like to find fresh water. There’ll be more prey around there to hunt and you don’t look like you last much longer without a drink and a meal.” Perhaps it was the need to lead that drove her to take him under her wing. She was not suited to being a leader, and people didn’t tend to like her so much as a follower. She was born to take charge, and Spider’s meak personality would serve to give her some sense of having control, even if it wasn’t as satisfying as ruling a kingdom, it would do. For now.