The echo of cloven hooves against the green bamboo behind me is answered, surprisingly, by a male voice.

My attention pivots to him swiftly, ears lifted, lion’s tail curving upwards and about my body in an almost defensive curl (as it the useless tassel could do more than get in the way); I don’t really care for being snuck up on, and its evident in the frown that deepens on my face as my head turns to let my aureate gaze size up the male that speaks.  It’s not his fault that I didn’t hear him over the sound of my violence against vegetation or the fluttering noise of my nerves, but whatever.  He’s gonna get glared at for the time being regardless, the forward angle of my ears dropping back to the slight backward tilt of being perturbed – the only thing keeping my usual snotty attitude at bay being an irksome wonder as to why he seems so curiously familiar, but entirely strange.

So distracted with this wonder and the rushing course of aggravation at having been startled, I don’t even notice his companion until he gives her a name – so I glance up, because Erakro is obviously not riding his back as so many creatures seem to do, but there’s nothing overhead, perched on the misaligned caps of the bamboo encircling us.  The last place I decide to look, of course, is where she is – a very little thing of some feline lineage, tawny colored, her paws and head too big for the oddly proportioned parts of her predatory body.  I know from Kyst, however, that the gangly oddness of young cats shouldn’t be mistaken as anything other than youth – and Erakro is almost as big as mother’s griffon already, barely grown (it makes my thoughts try to trail off on a path of wonder as to how very large she will be when she’s done).  

Oddly, the man also introduces what seems to be his dagger, which makes my eyebrows rise up ever so slightly, my gaze returning to his face from the cub, at his hooves.

That’s a different sort of thing to introduce, but to each his own, I suppose.

"I guess I wouldn’t mind it," I answer, untruthfully, the rich tenor of my voice tethered to a slight gruffness, especially in my minor annoyance at them – I’d really like it, mostly because it’s hard to imagine shadow wolves while using your mind for conversation, but there is something so wimpy about asking for companionship to me, "I’m Rikyn."

I look again at his dagger, unable to keep from wondering why someone would name a knife unless it did something more than stab things from time to time.  Besides, I’ve heard enough of enchanted objects in stories gleaned from elders, and even seen a few – like the little daggers the Angry Snowflake had used against me.  My own father made machines that lived.  It was easy to assume that this “Krukero” was fancier than it let on.

"Does it do anything?" I ask, not caring if its rude to ask such direct questions about others belongings, or if maybe he’d rather not share the enchantment it holds – an advantage I understand entirely, the sort to withhold plenty of things from plenty of people for the greater purpose of serving myself.

[ OOC: It's okay!  I have lots of typos and I occasionally swap out words for totally wrong but related ones so I know the struggle of finger cooperation. xD ]

The amusement rolls over my head, in the sort of way a lot of things do. I’m not sure what I’ve said or done to merit such a response, other than badger with questions, speak at him as if he is a gnat humming about my ears. His words make my ears fall back ever so slightly, a deep breath sucked in through my nostrils as I try to process what he could mean by that grin, those words.

Expectations? And what did the world expect of me? I had never been given anything like a list to live by, except for, maybe, mother’s nagging.

“Stand straighter, Rikyn,” or “go wash your face, you look homeless.”

My turn to smile is now, my dark lips tilting upwards in memory of how horrified she’d been to see my mane in tangles, sticks protruding, leaves lingering; I was my father’s son, not hers.

Blessedly, the familiar stranger explains, this Oultik rumbling out that I am blunt, almost rude. He would be the first one to put almost in front of that word before he used it. Ashamin hadn’t used it at all – rather, he’d thrown down a gauntlet, and we’d danced in the snow, words tossed aside for the more obvious meanings of blows.

The stare of the cat is unnoticed as it passes between us, because my eyes are holding this man’s face and searching them for a hint of sarcasm, a hidden barb. That I don’t find one likely means nothing – the genes for knowing people’s thoughts by the motions of their face didn’t pass through mother to me.

"What of it?" I finally decide, after almost saying nothing. Part of me thinks that he finds it a good thing, to be direct, like I do – but part of me worries that there is a woman hidden beneath all those muscles, that I’ll get fussed at for not knowing all the rules in their mystical, ultimately secret, book of regulations. While friendship was easy as a child, each of our minds open, trusting, eager to reach out and embrace, tangle with those around them, I’d realized that it grew harder the older you got; they started seeing you as a threat, a challenge, an obstacle, just another guy unworthy of their breath, not as a person, with a heart, beating. Not as someone who feels very much like an island adrift in the sea.

The stallion presents the dagger proudly, as proudly explaining that it does nothing but tie him to the place of its creation.

I snort, a rough laugh hidden poorly behind exhalation.

Laaaaaaaaame.

I’d never forgotten who I was, where I was from. Xynia heard every story I had of the mountains, of my Princedom, of my friends. I wore a scar from Xynia’s horn on my shoulder now, a memory I carried with me, though it was fading.

I’m too young to understand that a head gets too full of memories to remember them all, as time meanders on. I don’t understand the purpose of a totem, symbolizing home, because my young heart hasn’t had time to forget it yet. Even now, out here in the wilderness, the Basin was still home, though I’d not returned again as I probably should have. They’d take me back. If they didn’t, I’d just kick some ass to make it so.

"Can’t say I understand that much," I answer, smiling, trying my best to move forward with this thick wall of misunderstanding built between us, the bricks slapping onto the mortar, "but it’s a nice dagger. Where are you from that it’s so easy to forget, anyway?"