[Anora Eventide]

"I did not think it would be so dangerous if you accompanied me."
There was a round hint of surprise in Anora's answer.

She said nothing more, but took counsel with her own logic and will. A twine of leather was fished from her pocket, and her hands reached beneath the cloak of her shawl. When the shawl slipped to her shoulders, her starling hair was simply tied. Not an elaborate coil as she usually favored, but enough to keep her promise to Dimitri and restrain it from her face.
Still immersed in quiet she rolled the shawl into a thin strip that she arranged about her neck like a scarf.

"Follow the hound or pass some of the evening with you. Can I not have both?"

Bending over, Anora tugged at her boots and remarked,
"It is likely a small beast that has distracted it, but the hound's absence will put me at unease for the darkening."
A strange idea, as precious little put Anora at unease. Her fondness for the creatures was not a flippant observation.

While Dimitri had relinquished Anora from his touch, she returned to the warm nearness and pressed a kiss on his mouth.
"I will find you in your tent in a little, if you are too tired for such an errand."

As she followed the hound's impressions in the moist earth, the woman paused and spoke briefly with female soldier beside a low cooking fire. When the few words ended, Anora had the use of a battered lantern, a remnant from some military campaign.

With or without Dimitri, Anora briskly moved through the camp, pushing towards its outer edge where the marsh seeped over the invisible boundary. At this unseen line, Anora paused. Her eyes plunged into the dark and moved through the tall grasses. An imperceptible quirk in the rhythm of her blood. A flush of doubt. A shadow in the reeds.

Crossing into the marsh submerged such twinges, pressing their heads beneath its muddy pools.