The droopy eyes of the beast followed Astrid's advance in serene anticipation that only the already dead could muster. It let the girl speak, waiting for her to finish and get up close by until drawing in another painful breath to give her an answer. From a step away it was clearly audible how the ribs and barks snapped inside the expanding chest. A small patch of the green moss also fell off of the bark and sploshed into the stream. It bounced back to the surface all wet and began flowing down the trickle like a small island boat. As if to save its strength, the lion spoke with a lower and quieter tone now that his voice did not have to carry as far. "Yes, you are a clever little girl to know us Astrid." Its eyes flickered on the girl's shoulder when she spoke to Calden, but they returned to the girl as she laid her hand on its drying mossy fur. As it continued, the lion's words might have been intimidating, but the tone they carried was so tired and zen that their hostility was completely washed out. "Brave too, on a good day I would not have received a human like you with a strange thing like that with you in such friendly manner. It stinks... same foul stench as the wandering god. I pity you though girl, to have to carry something so twisted with you despite being so young and kind...  I cannot help you find anything now, and I fear that you cannot help me either. A vessel of a maddened just awoken God trod past and plucked my heart out when I roared it to turn back."<br/><br/>Calden was quieted by the creature's attitude towards him, and seemed to be still having hard time keeping his eye on the lion. Some parts of the tattoo creeped over the blue lens to squint at whatever light he was seeing. The lion stopped talking as it's voice began to grow too throaty to continue. It caught a sudden fit of cough that made some of the glistening sweet resin spill from its mouth on a wide radius. For a moment the outflow from its veins was hastened too and a large floating slick of golden fluid was formed on the surface of the water from the outburst. The veins were still spewing out the golden liquid, but slower now, yet, the creature had once been strong and didn't seem to be dead just yet.