The confused looks passing over Pteron's face were not lost on the nereid. She knew that for her to suddenly be found with a child, any child, would be a shock to him. The fact that Halcyon was a foundling, and not hers by blood seemed irrelevant. It didn't matter to her that the boy was striped and clawed and a little feral. He was hers as much as if she had birthed him, they both knew it.
Oh, but that could not be exactly why the pegasus man looked bemused. That, she suspected, had more to do with the fact that children have fathers, and he didn't know yet that she was as clueless as to the identity of the boy's sire as he was. Jealously, where he'd made quite clear none was warranted.
Truthfully, it was Hal's arrival that had taken the sting out of that reality. Her baby took all the love she'd wanted to give to the stallion now watching them, had drank it up without hesitation. It was a kind of bone deep affection she was beginning to think she'd never find with a lover. It was why she could look at Pteron now and only feel the faintest twinge of want.
Romance aside, however, he was still her friend. Her best friend. The shadow that passed over his face at mention of his home immediately set a warning in her head. With Hal there, he seemed to find deeper discussion prohibited, and that concerned her even more. Keeping her voice light, the sea mare turned to the half-grown tiger at her side.
"The salmon are starting to come up the river. Shall we go catch one for you? I don't think you've tried them before." She smiled, nodding toward the jungle path that would take them to the river flowing from the falls. It was a suggestion with dual purpose. Hal needed breakfast, first of all. But it might also give her and Pteron a chance to talk more privately of the young tiger were preoccupied with his new prey.
"Come on then," she invited, bumping her hip against the sky colored stallion's barrel as she started down the path. "And you can tell me why it's suddenly not a good idea for me to visit." The hurt of the phrase was cloaked by her ever-cheery tone, but it dug at her nonetheless. There were so many reasons he might not want her around, and none of lightened the sense of dread weighing in her belly.
@[Pteron]