[@Shikaru]

Lyra gently patted Illumina's cheek as she leaned her torso over the human, so as to shield her face from the blinding sun.

[color=teal]"You'll still be a very dashing lady.  There are songs of strong shieldmaidens, no?

I mean, you don't seem like one, but...

I don't really need to tell you, but as a reminder, perhaps...if you have friends clad in armor, use them.  It's a man's job to take the blows, isn't it?  Your companions are here for you; I'm here for you, okay?  If I fail, I should be the one suffering for my inability, no?

But...thank you for helping, though.  You could've been a fine guard or something other...

So if I may ask, what led you to coming here?"[/color]

Just then, a couple of tiny creatures, black and writhing, rushed their way to the corpse, and tore off the jaw and the leg of the cougar.  Silently, Lyra kept her eyes on the little monsters, curious as to what the two had in mind.

What sort of creature of such size do with the jaw and the leg (perhaps a foot, considering how small the creatures were) of a cougar?  Spears and other implements were out of the question; the size of the teeth and claws were already quite large in proportion to the creatures' size.

[i]So much for working with an entire corpse.[/i]

So as to avoid the same incident happening again, Lyra closed her eyes and loosened her body, slumping just a tad bit as though she were dead.  She was, though, focusing more on re-activating some smaller bits of magical residue within her; she was going to try to re-animate the corpse for protection.