Willows

He watched, nodding as she rose and spoke of taking a walk. He wouldn’t follow. He had a sense that she wanted to be alone for a minute, and he had the drying meat to watch. The scavengers hadn’t come out of the woodwork, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t at some point. He could only hope the ‘yotes and other smaller scavengers would wait until they’d departed the kill-site.

He did keep an ear out for her, ready to charge in if she suddenly needed help for any reason. But all was well, so he pulled himself to his paws, stretching, and made the rounds around the fire again, feeding the flames, turning the racks, nibbling some strips himself to test the flavor—pretty damn good…

He found himself humming, then singing quietly, almost mumblingly to himself. It was a Nomad song he’d often overheard Paladin singing, a sort of lullaby about perseverance, happy days, long travels and setting up camp for another night. He wasn’t so good at the Old Tongue as Aurielle and Paladin and their family, but he gave it a good go, mumbling the tune when he hit words he couldn’t remember or pronounce well.

He had a smooth, deep voice, and thankfully, he could carry a tune instead of cat-wailing off on a tooth-itchingly bad key. Once the racks were adjusted he turned to the hide, plucking a shoulder blade from the carcass to use as he’d seen Domari doing and bent to begin fleshing the hide.

He kept up the lazy tune, trailing from the initial song to a ballad he just hummed, not knowing the words to it.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think