"Your tail is so cute!"

Wren swayed Astrid's little freckled tail between his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. Ever since she revealed it to him, he wouldn't stop pestering her about how badly he wanted to play with it. With the tilt of her head, Wren asked, "How come you always hide it?"

"Mmm," Astrid mumbled, "I feel like that's obvious enough. Don't you think it'd be strange seeing a person with a tail hanging from their backside?"

He looked up for a second, considered his options, and cordially grinned at his friend. "I'd find it interesting. Nobody else has one like you! Unless they're hiding theirs too, hehe..."

Wren was always in awe about something when it came to Astrid, and she didn't fully understand his fascination. It sort of bothered her in a way, and not particularly a bad one... It was a way in which it made her chest fill with an unfamiliar warmth and an unnerving wrack of the heart; a way in which he forced her guard down and made it impossible to let it back up.

Her red tuft of hair waved to and fro in Wren's grasp as he waved it around, almost as if she was a baby playing with a new toy.

"Woah!"

Suddenly, it flicked!

“Did you do that?"

Astrid buried her head into her palms and huffed, absolutely reddened in the face. "No."
"Do you control your tail or does it work on its own?"

"I can control it."

"So you did do that...!"

Another flick!

Astrid swiftly wrapped her head around and clutched her tail. "Okay, that's enough! No more playing!"

"Aw man, already? That was only, like, one second!" A sad huff escaped Wren as he stared solemnly at his friend, but that sorrow was immediately wiped out by...Wren being Wren.

"Well, I had fun with it," he assured, dusting off his knees as he picked himself up from off the ground. "And like I said, it is pretty cute, Red. You should leave it out more often."

To this, Astrid’s heart swelled and its throbbing sensation never stalled, just like it always does with him. It's never ending, each and every time.

“Psh, whatever…”

She wouldn't trade it for the world.