rivers or veins; any

[brave]

can't tell if i've got rivers or veins
running under my skin

Brave is a demanding chief in this redwood forest - her forest, as she comes to think of it and this purple pup is an interloper. He rolls and howls and finally settles enough for her to peer at the paw he holds up. Sure enough, there is a pine needle embedded in it just as she had expected. How Brave had known was anyone’s guess but she was smart enough to figure that he had been careless and playful enough not to mind where he set his little paws, but she always knew where to place her little hooves - it was just instinctual and he seemed daft to instinct. He was also somehow proving to be quite the annoyance, as she squared up her little shoulders and listened to him whine about the pain.

She did not think him weak - just annoying, though somewhere in the back of her mind, there persisted a small dim thought that he was exactly that, a weakling of a wolf but figured a needle in the paw was quite the same thing as a stone in the tender frog of the hoof, bruising and hurtful. That and that alone softened her just the slightest bit towards him and his ridiculous plight. “I haven’t done anything yet!” she snaps as he howls on and on about the hurt in his paw. Brave was about to do something about it though…

Until his amethyst eyes pin her with their teary questioning stare. Uh oh. Her heart softened in its hardness towards him just a little bit more and Brave let loose an exasperated sigh. “I’m going to pull it out.” she tells him, grave in her sincerity as he covers his eyes with his other paw and blathers on. Oh for heavens’ sakes! Brave wishes for a moment that she was deaf so his terrible cries could fall on ears that couldn’t hear but alas, she has to listen to him tell her to do it then to stop then to get on with it and finally, Brave does just that - she gets on with it. With a snort, she grasps the needle in her milk-teeth and gives one sharp fast tug that tears the needle free from his paw.

“You can look now, it’s over and done with.” she says around the needle still in her mouth before spitting it out to blend in with all the other pine needles littering the forest floor. She thought about leaving but he never quite answered her earlier question about why a filly could understand everything a wolf pup was saying to her, and figured that gave her some reason to stay besides to see how he’d react now that his paw was free of it’s irritation. Brave took a step back to give him room to do whatever it was the pup would do next and just looked on him with curious blue eyes and a face still pinched in a frown.

brave

@[Cyrus]