Had she been privy to the musings of this foreign brain she might have been persuaded to gales of laughter for a lingering moment. To believe her mind to be so constricted, so narrow, purely because she did not bound to him in some flamboyant act of friendship, because she gazed upon him with calculated suspicion rather than clichéd and reverent curiosity… was his folly. Her mind, whether by virtue of her considerable youth or her existence as an individual rather than just another cog in a machine, was just as open as he assumed his own to be. The yearling whelp did not look upon this pack pup with disdain purely because he differed in some monumental way from herself; her presumptions were, until he or his actions should come to prove otherwise, dictated by the agglomeration of truths she had come to accumulate over the past year.

”A mystery is only as exhilarating as its answer.” Her tone is bereft the teasing tegument of before, the words delivered with as much heft as Maud believes that they should be. To admit oneself a curious soul was only instinctual, at least to the yearling whelp who subsided on the unknown; however, to bend to the titillating promise of curiosity and yet come away with voluntarily empty hands, to come away none the wiser for your toils, was ludicrous. It was a fool’s errand to meander about in the pursuit of curiosity’s prey and yet never sink your proverbial teeth into the still-warm and writhing carcass of the truth, to fill your mind and mouth with the satisfyingly thick lifeblood of knowledge. If his words were true then he would prove himself every bit the buffoon that his lumbering footfalls and brazen and unabashed trudging had hinted to.

However, despite the intensity of her misgivings regarding this particular wayward soul, Maud descends in his wake, the dull padding of paw upon earth aiding in guiding her through the deepening crepuscule that swallows both of their bodies with a eerie hunger. The youngling harbors no fear for the darkness, nor the possibility of what may or may not linger behind the clandestine curtain of its obscurity; however, her every step is silent, cautious, for to flounce about within the belly of the unknown would only see her compromised by her own salacious confidence. This she has learned from her dam, a survivor if ever she had known one to exist. As they transcend, paws alit finally upon the pitted bottom of the alcove within which they had found themselves, Maud progresses beyond her counterpart, lithe bodice transgressing to the edges of whatever light dared reach its radiant fingers into these perilous depths.

It is but a matter of a few strides before one carefully-placed paw inches over the treacherous edge of some unseen precipice, the floating appendage swiftly placed back upon the edge of the underground trench. Far from forfeiting herself to the cool wash of apprehension, the charcoal wench simply lowers her dainty cranium, the fleshy moistened bulb of her nose into the black, waiting mouth of the abyss. A moment of contemplation dictates her silence before a low hum, nearly a growl, echoes from the recesses of her narrow chest. The neat triangles of her ears prick forward, evidence of her absolute attentiveness… her small frame rigid and still. She repeats the seemingly aberrant action once more, falling static in the wake of each uttered hum, listening for the answering resonance to confirm her suspicions.

Satisfied with the answer her impromptu experiment as yielded, Maud focuses her attentions onward, echoing the same subtle hum into the darkness beyond… and yet this time, the sound seems to ping from what lays beyond, the notes returned to her in part and not absorbed by the blackness as they had been when uttered into the abyss. Amber eyes squint eagerly into the throes of darkness which lay before her, the hint of a ledge just visible in the otherwise unwavering murk. A smile, nearly macabre in its hunger, creases the not-unattractive features of her face as she retreats a few paces from the greedily waiting mouth of the trench. A single look, one moment and a flash of amber, are cast in the direction of her impromptu company before the tight coils of muscle beneath her infant pelt lurch her figure into action, the already considerable strength in her legs propelling the youngster across the trench and unto the ledge that lays beyond. A soft thud and the clashing of nails against rock are the only odes to her success, her body remaining static for but a moment before she seeks to venture further into the depths of this new and exciting world within which they have found themselves, ears twitching behind her to listen for the pack whelp she has left in her wake.