In the Middle of Summer

Wolf looks over at Reena curiously.

"A vegetarian?" he repeats back to her, "What is that?"

"Hm?" Reena glanced up from her phone. "Oh! A vegetarian is a person who doesn't eat any meat. Some people do it just because they want to but I think some species are just like that by nature. Like my horse friend."

"Oh... okay." Wolf replies, "Prey animals."

He glances down at his basket and takes out a couple more fries to eat.

Reena giggled a bit at his response. "Well, I think if you called her a 'prey animal' to her face, she might take a little offense," the dog pointed out, gesturing briefly with a french fry.

"Oh... I don't really mean anything negative by that." Wolf says as he looks back at Reena, "It's just... how I think of animals that only eat plants. Usually they are food for something else."

Reena still appeared amused by Wolf's choice of words as she also replied, "Yeah, but when a 'predatory' animal, such as a big bad wolf, goes and calls them 'prey', they might take it as you're imagining gnawing on their bones."

She shoved the fry in her paw into her mouth and added, "Maybe just call them herbivores? Or vegetarians. ...Or herbies!" The little canine just chuckled at her own term before picking up a piece of fish and taking a bite out of it.

"Hmmm... you probably have a very good point there." Wolf replies, "But I don't think that applies to me as I am neither big nor bad."

He picks up another piece of fish shortly after and begins eating it as well.

"Well, you're big to me!" Reena commented, "But okay, you might not be very big to a horse. And someone who doesn't know you doesn't know how bad you might be either."

She had started to gesture with her food again as she spoke, only pausing to take another bite once she finished speaking.

"Then I suppose that opinion will vary from person to person." Wolf replies, "Guess it's not something that I will have to focus too much on, unless it comes up."

"Sure, yeah," Reena agreed, "The big point is to not make people feel like you wanna eat them."
She glanced down to her phone as its screen lit up, looking over the notification that had appeared before returning her attention to her food.

"Of course." Wolf says, "Or maybe they shouldn't worry too much about it either. How many people really go around eating others anyway?"

"I dunno, I don't much care for looking at the news, myself," Reena admitted, "But supposedly it does still happen in some places!"

"Oh... that definitely seems bizarre." Wolf replies.

He falls silent as he dwells on that thought. He resumes eating as well a few moments later.

"Don't it, though?" Reena asked, "I haven't been to any of those parts of the world, though."

"Would you really want to go out to places like that as well?" Wolf asks, after swallowing his current mouthful.

"Well, maybe not alone and looking quite as delectable as I do now, but sure why not?" Reena replied, "Adventure is adventure!"

"Well... I guess if you really want adventure. But that kind of situation might be a bit too dangerous." Wolf says.

Reena laughed softly. "You sound like my parents," she said, "I won't go to those places lookin' for trouble, but if I end up there on one of my adventures, I won't just run away either."

"It that a bad thing to sound like them?" Wolf asks.

"It is if you're not actually my dad," Reena teased before eating another couple of french fries.

Wolf looks over at her.

"How come?" he asks, before eating a few more fries himself.

"'Cause I don't need more than one dad, of course," Reena replied, "I'm perfectly happy with the parents I already have."

"Oh... okay." Wolf replies.

He seems confused by her response, but doesn't look like he's going to ask for clarification. Instead, he returns his attention to eating.

Reena felt no need to expand further herself and appeared content to leave it at that. For the time being, she fell silent and also focused on the food in front of her.

For the time being Wolf is content to let the silence continue between them. He continues to eat, occasionally looking around the sitting area and also out into the distance.