but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams

He wasn't sure what he was doing. Hells, he wasn't even sure this was real—that he was real, and not just sleep-walking. Maybe he had shifted out of time again? It certainly wouldn't surprise him, because .. there was just something about the situation which felt vaguely unreal. Maybe it was the lingering winter, maybe it was the way the sunlight fell between the needles and filtered down, and how the gilded dust motes danced in the air—or maybe it was the slow drip of blood from her pale nose, and the silence which hung heavy between them. Eyes met, pale blue and silver-flecked teal, and Mauja felt at a loss for what to say, or do. Part of him still wanted to back away and go to sleep, but that would be very rude.

He didn't need to alienate more of the herd than he already had. But what could he say? 'Hey, you're bleeding'? As if she didn't know. What was standard protocol when interacting with a bleeding herd-mate? Call for a medic? But it was such a tiny gash—

She solved the problem for him. The silver in her eyes had somehow hardened, glinting like steel with a light of their own, pushed into sharp focus by the narrowing of her eyes. (Ouch.) "Hello I am Raeden." And her lips, which had parted previously but in no expression he had been able to decipher, pulled into a bright, charming smile.

At least he thought it was charming—it was inviting, and from a purely aesthetic perspective, it made her prettier. Maybe it was something about the way it made her seem more open? Whatever the case, it seemed she had decided he wasn't intruding terribly much, and a tension he hadn't been aware of went out of him in a smoky sigh. Times were changing, becoming stranger and stranger, if it truly was so that he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach just because someone might dislike him.

Maybe it was because he was judging himself through the eyes of others all the time.

If they found him wanting, then surely, that was the truth.

"Hello," he answered softly, quietly, the word barely more than a breath. The dappled light playing across her hide struck glints of gold from her coat, but, he noticed absently, there were some streaks of silver, too. Scars, or just a pattern? "I am Mauja." (And not the Mauja she had met once, a lifetime ago, the Lost Prince of Skogamark—that Mauja had, by the grace of the gods, found his way home again.)

Slowly, he shifted his gaze away from her face. She was beautiful, but.. he wasn't blind; even he could see that. But his mind was replaying a memory, of having brought Katerina home from the Threshold, and the way Tembovu had been drawn to her, exchanging small, flirtatious comments, and how deeply it had disturbed him. He wasn't ready to think about it, not right now, but as his gaze brushed across Raeden's shoulder while heading for Tin, he realized that whatever it was which had driven Tembovu to compliment Katerina in such a way, Mauja wasn't feeling it. The thought, the idea that he was lacking something, was uncomfortable, so he busied himself with studying the Cerndyr. "The pair of you cleaning up some?" he asked, feeling like he had to ask something, and it was the most tangible thing he could ask.

[ Sorry for the wait, again. Life went om nom nom on me. @Raeden ]

man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same