Foxglove’s expression remained firmly enthusiastic as she greeted her friend, despite her sister’s apparent determination to be grumpy. She couldn’t understand why Firethorn had to be so mistrustful – after all, it was their father and their herd-mates who had attacked Nephilim in the Prairie. Foxglove was still too naïve to realise that perhaps there was another reason for their father’s reaction besides Nephilim being a strange stallion in his territory, and she was not one to go looking for bad news if it was not presented to her directly.

“You live here?” Foxglove repeated, her warm brown eyes drifting curiously across the horizon. There was real awe in her voice, childish with excitement. “Wow! That’s so cool!”

Tinuvel was much too cold to be comfortable she thought, but it was very pretty all the same. She was so used to seeing green everywhere on Luthien that this new mixture of colours and the new textures in the land were exotic and fascinating to her. How could it be that Nephilim owned such a place? He wasn’t that much older than them, and yet the sisters were only just moving out to live with somebody else.

Firethorn, of course, was less impressed as she cast those critical mismatched eyes over the land surrounding them. Unlike her sister, she realised that there was little challenge or prowess in owning a territory unless there was someone else actively trying to take it from you. Any old guy could wander into an abandoned swath of land and start calling it his own.

She snorted, turning her attention back to Nephilim at his question. She answered before her sister could intervene.

“We’re on our way to the Inlet,” she replied simply, her tone blunt as she lifted her gaze to his. “To live with a man called Pagan.”

Foxglove’s gaze flicked curiously between the pair, glad that her sister had at least said something – and something civil too.

“Our dad says he’s a good guy,” she continued, elaborating for Nephilim. “Do you know him?”

Two pairs of ears twitched forwards towards him.

foxglove && firethorn
LIKE TWO ATOMS IN A MOLECULE, INSEPARABLY COMBINED