She was ever oblivious. If he was basking in the attention, or her stare caused his chest to puff, the girl did not notice. As she stared, admiring the richness of his black coat, she didn’t notice his long exhale or his returning stare. Sleep was still gripping all her limited skills of awareness, and she had far too many other things pressing in her mind. What did come to her attention was the seeming ignorance of her offer, and his rather silent type disposition. The child who was full of questions and could have a conversation easily with a tree, found in this silence and lack of more welcome, tension. As she was waking to her usual bubbling self, she checks.

Her smile though was ever gracious. There were those before who were more silent and reserved. Certainly there were a few back home (she still had no other name for her tiny island of the past other than what it was to her, home). The lower members of the herd might only nod, but everyone always was very polite, to her anyway. She wasn’t vain enough in her simple style to demand such attentions and cares, but complete lack of any effort to invite her to conversation was odd. To have one hold back, though strange, did not jolt her into any suspicion. Besides, why should she worry? She was here, in this seeming haven of beauty, the morning mist hiding all evil possibilities from her eyes.

Anyway, she had much more important things on her mind. The velvet dark voice speaks up, and the feathers at her sides shift ever slightly out, with tasseled tail giving a swing. They were the slightest signs that she was on a baited breath within. Yet her curiosity is little satisfied. He is. That’s it? It was becoming more apparent that he, unlike she, had every capability of keeping his sentences short. The curled ears flick as she inhales to probe again, but he leans down to drink. His short words keep her manners up, as he gave her no room in the conversation for relaxation or ease.

So as he drank she waited patiently, the vanes of her feathers mindfully lying flat again, and the faint smile kept as she watched. It was impossible even for the girl to not notice that while this black rich beauty drank, his lightless eyes watched ever closely, bold as hers. Yet though she had felt uneasy at his maintaining of distance in the conversation, his steady gaze doesn’t bother the pearl. To feel eyes looking and watching over her was neither a fearful position, nor one of much compliment. It simple was always as it was. The duller colors of those without the higher blood had always looked with slightly hungry eyes (and stomachs) at the crystal clear coats and slender (yet well filled) bodies. To have them stare openly never seemed to bother the child, or perhaps she never took up its meaning (the words envy, lust?, and possibly hatred never filled her ears before).

Her brother had been different. Caspian had told her once of how he hated their dark stares, but he hadn’t been able to make his sister understand. So he never tried again. Virgil had tried another time, when it came to their attention that the girl knew absolutely nothing about…too friendly of gazes. But it got lost in translation. And the girl continued to give the same quite indifference to openly wandering eyes.

So the dark company gets to look, without remorse or reward. Nothing but the continuing pleasant smile, and warm reception. He raises his head again, and the girl inhaled breath holds once more slightly, waiting to continue on, and try and pull him from whatever quite corner he came from. There was some naïve thought her smaller mind, that she had only to pry him open slightly, and this more silent and reserved exterior (like hers) would melt away. He beats her to the question though and her tasseled tail flicks to the other side with delight at the other showing interest. Yet…the question was a bit harder to answer than she thought.

The girl drops her gaze from the entrancing black coat, and looks back up the hill from where she had wandered this morning. She had spent the night, and been invited to stay many more, yet was she a member? One ear falls back slightly. Even her naïve heart trembled slightly to claim a new family but it didn’t want to face the ice cold of claiming none. (She was unknowing about how rude or strange this might seem to her company. So many weeks alone had perhaps taken their toll on these notions even with her father’s teachings.) Exhaling she turns back, her more pleasant expression returning with her ever soft and gentle words. “Only just” this second. A shiver ran down her spine to say it, but not from regret or tension, this was the pearl after all, instead from anticipation at what that admittance now meant, what it gave her.

Of course she wasn’t about to let it end there. He wasn’t going to get away that easily. The girl was determined to label him as shy, or a stallion of extreme etiquette. Besides all her questions were still listing long and fast in her mind. “Have you been here long? What’s it like?” She could barely hold her tongue from asking a third, but she holds back. His reserve keeping up hers. Besides, the next one on her lips questioned his flight, and she still, as if ignoring the elephant in the room, couldn’t ask. There was so much that felt wrong (on both sides, the girl would admit) about the idea that he had just landed, perfectly safe, without seeming strain. He seemed, albeit quiet, completely sane, yet he had just been in the air.



OOC:: LOL That's why this poor girl's just now getting out.

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