She felt kinda responsible for the kid since, you know, she’d let him be mauled by a bush on their last outing. So when he started pestering her about going out again, well, who was she to leave him behind?

Deluge measured her steps to those of the much smaller wolf and tried not to roll her eyes when he wandered off over this way or that. Approaching the verdant flames of the bonfire put the Fallen child on edge, but she shepherded her barely younger charge to one of the fallen pillars as the sun was setting. They could hang around and take part without really taking part, right? As the sun was lowering in the sky she checked out the fallen pillars, and tried to imagine what they might have looked like when they were all standing, and how on earth did they come up with where to put them anyway?

The snort that left her nose sent a cloud of dragon’s breath into the sky and she looked up as it dissipated into the sky. "Hey check it out," the stars were starting to come out, the brightest seeming to fall in line with the cirlcle below. "What do you think they mean?"

"Speech"

It was a long walk from the Obsidian beach to the steppe, and he was grateful Deluge was taking her time to spare his tiny legs. They had survived their journey to the weepy trees and now the smell of the strange green smoke filled his nose, making his ice blue eyes water. The larger glowy girl indicated that they should move away from those sitting too close to the fire, and his back paws scrambled against the smooth stone as he attempted to pull himself up alongside her.

It took at least two more attempts before he made it up, and the sun was setting in the distance, darkening the sky and making the green flames dance even more vibrantly. Like his companion, his eyes were drawn to the toppled stones with a canting of his head. What on earth could they have been used for, he wondered, wide-eyed as the first stars twinkled into existence overhead.

Deluge’s words pulled him back to the present as he tipped his muzzle upward. The more he looked, the clearer the spaces in between came. “Whacha mean?” He started to trace patterns with his eyes, join the dots until a giant wolf with an open maw was spread out in the stars above him. “I see a wolf that looks like its about to puke all over us.” The boy giggled. It was always funny when the grown ups drank just a bit too much.

“Speech”

the rougher the seas the smoother we sail

Deluge snickered, then schooled her face after the disapproving glances on a few of the familiars caught her eye. "Are yer sure it isn’ tryin’ ter eat us?" She countered back, turning her own eyes back to the sky and tracing the outline that Sakana had found before her. She looked a little further to the left, "Looks ter me like ‘e’s hunting rabbits, maybe it means we’re gonna have a good winter?" She countered, her nose crinkling as more of the crazy fire’s smoke blowed their direction.

She took it as a cue to move again indicating to Sakana they should head over to the next grassy hill and away from the toppled stones. After all, the further they got from the flames, the clearer the stars became. She flopped to the cool earth with a groan and rolled onto her back, looking back up to the stars overhead. "That one over there," She pointed to a star to the south and ever so slightly west, "Was how I found my way home when I got swept out ter sea." The boy seemed as adventurous as any of them, so it wouldn’t hurt him to know it. "What else can we see up there eh? What’s that lot look like ter you?" It all just looked like a squiggly mess to her, it was hard to tell the real stars from the green floating embers and fireflies. Maybe the stars would keep their secrets tonight.

"Speech"

His eyes followed Deluge’s to the left and he saw… well they looked more like mule deer than rabbits to him, but he was very small, and that star wolf was very large. Maybe Deluge had the right of it. When she shooed him further away from the fire, well, it had been so hard to get up here in the first place! It took him an extra minute to measure up the drop and slide down to join her. His legs were aching from their long journey and when she flopped to the ground, he watched for just a moment as a sparkle of fireflies wafted up from the grass she had disturbed.

Now that he looked closer, it seemed the fireflies were making a second sky beneath them. He wasn’t too keen on that. It made his tummy do funny little flip-flops as he tried to remind himself, actually, no, they were on solid ground, he could feel it right beneath his feet.

He was pulled from his anxious spiral by Deluge pointing out one particular group of stars that were the most familiar in the world to him. They had been there his whole seeing life, but it was good to know he could spot them even from here.

With slightly weak knees, he moved and sat more gingerly than his companion, waving his tail twice to shoo any bugs so he wouldn’t accidentally sit on any. He tipped his head up to consider the sky spread out before them and the specific tangle his companion was pointing too. “S’ it a poptypus? Or a spider? Looks like a poptypus when I chase it back into the water with its legs goin’ all…” they boy wiggled dramatically. “They change colours when you chase ‘em y’know.” He wasn’t sure if Deluge had ever been around when one had washed up in the shallow pools along the waters edge before. She always seemed to be somewhere else.

“Speech”

the rougher the seas the smoother we sail

Deluge snickered at Sakana’s wiggling, paying no mind to the cautious way he had bought himself to a seat prior. She did lift a paw to shoo a particularly annoying firefly. The way it buzzed around was distracting from her view of the sky. "Hmm," she attempted to sound mysterious (and failed miserably), "I reckon if yer seein’ an octopus, it means you should keep low an’ try not to stick out too much fer now. Good thing’s’ll come if yer don’t go stickin’ yer neck out. Think about it, the octopus doesn’t get poked by yer sticks until it tries ter make a break back ter deeper water, but if it just waited a bit longer, the tide’d come back, and it wouldn’t have ter run away from, you, yer pest." She made a swipe of her paw to try and pull the kid into a headlock, aiming to give him a noogy if she caught him.

A particularly bright star caught her attention, and she squinted. Then it started moving and she huffed her annoyance. "Do yer even think the stars are real, or is it all jus’ some big joke on us?" She didn’t really expect an answer. This was all just a bit of fun, after all. Wasn’t it?

"Speech"

She wasn’t much older than he was, but that still made her twice his age, and she seemed wise beyond her years in moments like this. He took a moment to consider the way her coat glowed similarly to the fireflies, and her words about the octopus waiting and using it’s colour changing to lie low. He supposed, of all his siblings, he looked the most like his mum, and while that made him very proud, maybe other people wouldn’t feel that way. At least here, in the dark, he looked like any other dark brown wolf. An inky black dot on the landscape.

The question that came from the big girl sounded pretty serious and he opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again. Scrunching his brow in thought. He drew in a breath through his open mouth and began to cough and splutter. A firefly had flown in his mouth. As he finally dislodged the bitter bug from his throat and spat it onto the grass, he checked it over with worry. “Sorry little starfly! Ya shouldn’t fly in people’s mouths when they ‘bout to be’speakin’!” But maybe it knew what he was going to say and had decided the boy should keep it to himself? So with a low “Hmm” he left his thoughts unspoken and settled in to continue mapping pictures in the sky with Deluge. Real stars or not.

“Speech”

the rougher the seas the smoother we sail