Down the rabbit hole

“I won’t let you down!” she agreed with an excited yip at the end, yumping once on the spot. She had no idea how to track scents, but this was going to be fun, right? It wasn’t like she got totally turned around the second she entered the thicket and never reorientated herself.

The lioness laughed and looked down at her, her great golden heading bobbing a little with the gesture. Motif’s bright wide eyes zoomed in on her, tail wagging quickly behind her. Her mostly true ploy worked, and the lion relented to more rides. “Mumma wouldn’t kill you, she would just nibble on you a little” Motif giggled, before getting a little more serious. “Uncle Taf got real beat up by bad people that said they owned him, but we don’t do that here. Not ever. Your safe here.” Motif said, remembering the way Shaye had said that to her, the importance of it. Of respecting and caring for the members of this pack, that the wolves where the soul of the pack, that they meant everything.

She shook away the seriousness very quickly, bouncing back with a smile, and jumping onto the lioness’s back. She splayed her paws on either side of the lion’s broad back, and dug them in to give her some sort of balance. “I can see everything from here” she gasped, caught in the wonder of seeing over the thicket. Even Shaye sometimes got hidden in the grass, but not Canny!

“That way” Motif said, leaning forward to point her nose straight. She would see what was around them and sort of guess from there.