The suddenness of the way she reacts makes him wonder if he had managed to startle her somehow even despite the dragging of those dirty wings at his shoulders. He feels instantly bashful and ducks his head, those gold-tipped ears drooping outwards as he tries to decide what he should do now. She doesn’t particularly look like someone who is pleased to find themselves in unrequested company, but maybe it would be just as offensive if he left so soon after saying hi. He shuffles awkwardly, and his eyes chance another quick glance at her face in case maybe it has softened towards him.
Oh.
It has not.
He winces when she spits her answer at him like it tastes foul in her delicate mouth, but he still doesn’t turn from her entirely, just takes one single hesitant step back like he would if he had encountered a cornered animal. This feels a little like that, maybe. “Everything is a lot.” He answers quietly, still bashful and feeling scolded by her intensity.
Her attention shifts somewhere past him, and he covertly ducks his head to glance in that direction just in case she has an equally unhappy friend. Like maybe a guy friend with big muscles and a fragile temper. But it’s only them and the relief he feels makes him braver than he has any right to be. Especially when those blue eyes leave the trees to settle like midnight against his face. He cannot help the crooked smile that tugs shyly at one side of those gold lips.
He watches her face soften and marvels at how much it changes her, even just that slight bit enough to soften her edges so she no longer seems a feral thing carved from stone. But her wings stay tight against her sides and it makes him feel like maybe she wants to hide behind them - no, not that. Like she wants them to hide her.
His ears tip forward when she finally speaks again, and though he doesn’t reclaim those few lost steps, it is clear that he would like to. Instead he frowns in a thoughtful way, his brow crinkling beneath those brilliant gold tangles. “I would miss my mom.” He tells her, thinking of Briseis and her gentle way. But it would be worse than that, he realizes, because if he woke up and didn’t know, then he wouldn’t remember mom at all. Not even to miss her. He blinks and that smile fades from his lips, those burnished gold eyes suddenly so sad with the direction of his thoughts.
“I guess that would depend on whether I wanted to forget or remember. If I didn’t mind the forgetting, I would just look for someplace I fit.” He considers this, and his face is a tapestry of open emotion like a window through to his quiet musing. “Remembering would be harder. Maybe I would ask aunt Heartfire, she knows everything.” He says it with such gentle earnestness that even his eyes shine a little brighter, pleased at having such a good idea. Then, belatedly, completely missing the point of her question, “You never told me your name. I'm Benji.”
harbinger
the current is strong, my arms are weak
but you are the branch within my reach