Reed's emerald eyes watched as the male lion adjusted his stature from alert at her approach to immediately defensive. He flared his wings and stepped in front of the child. She narrowed her eyes at him when he spoke up for the child, instead of letting her speak up for herself. "She's fine, now that I'm here." Reed was supposed to simply believe that? Perhaps once upon a time, back when she was a gullible youth, she would have taken him for face value. However, she'd learned her lesson through the years. It was just as likely that he was lying to her than he was telling her the truth.
When she saw his eyes dart past her, Reed reassured him, "There's no one else. It's just me." She didn't know if it was her response back to him or simply the intents of the other party slowly become more clear that caused him to relax, but she was grateful for it. She echoed his posture, visibly relaxing herself, and let the dagger float lower beside her, more towards her shoulder than up by her head. It was a metaphorical 'lowering her weapon'.
"Me too." Reed responded as he stated that the two of them were new. "Lizards screaming and chasing you?" That must have been terrifying for the poor cub! She suddenly piped up herself, giving further details about these chasing and screaming lizards. "It multiplies!" Reed echoed, resisting the urge to step forward towards the child in excitement. This... this sounded like a monster she could hunt!
"Well!" Reed started, suddenly pulling herself up into a heroic stance as her brawny body turned sideways in a well-practiced stance. "Young!! Uh... what did you say your names were?" Her heroic stance briefly faltered as she inquired of their names. Realizing that she could still continue on without their names, she puffed herself back up and, with a flourish, unsheathed her cutlass and did a hop-skip in a circle, dramatically slashing her cutlass through the air with a fluid motion. "You're in luck, for you've just recruited the help of Reed Blackpaw, monster slayer unlike any other!" She then hunched for a moment, then flung her head up skywards, flinging her cutlass up and into the air where it twirled on it's way up, then on the way back down. She reached out to catch the cutlass between her jaws for dramatic effect. If only she didn't miss.
Dex Roll: Level 3
Success - she catches the cutlass in an amazing display of athleticism! What a hero! Hurray!
Failure - she misses catching her cutlass and stumbles forwards onto her face. Some hero! Boooooo!