No one would ever mess with me. I wouldn't allow it. That is why I wait with my body at full height - which is to say, not that tall at all - and watch the hawk disappear in the distance. Some pups might make easy meals but they damn sure weren't me. Shaking off my surprise with what looks suspiciously like pride, I being to prance around the clearing and shove my nose beneath pockets of clumpy grass. There is no rhyme or reason why I do this. I just want to see if I can uncover something that was hidden, my desire to find always at maximum effect. For a moment I don't even notice the larger boy as he begins to make his way towards me, but when I do my body fluffs up again and I spread my forelegs and watch him in that suspicious way I had seen Mom do before.

Clearly I was no pup to be messed with so if he came to mess with me he was in the wrong place. Except, he seemed awfully chipper, and I was awfully excited to meet a new person NOT from the marshes. Still, I have to keep collected - just like my mom did. "I'm perfectly fine!" I say in a haughty manner, jerking my head up so that my neck hurt but looking fierce. As fierce as a pup can look, anyways. My milk teeth would fall out and I would get larger canines as I grew, but for now I reveled in their sharpness. "Oh, hi," I say, deflating somewhat when I realize he is being nice, and my own tail waves slowly back and forth. Only slow because I hold back the temptation to start going nuts.

"I'm Aster, Princess of Iromar!" Because I really had wanted to spout off that title to someone not in Iromar. Suddenly I get this sly look on my face as I glance around. "Hey Gendry, do you wanna help me find something? I'm looking for... the eggs of a beaver!" How was I to know they didn't lay eggs? Alligators did and I just assumed water animals did.