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It was hot, the kind of sticky, overbearing warmth that made it uncomfortable to play, let alone move. The filly was sprawled inelegantly at the base of a tree with whom she was too drained to initiate proper acquaintance, muscles twitching restlessly. It didn't seem to mind, however, letting her shuffle and mumble to herself, peering out between the branches to see the position of the sun. Still pretty high up, and not in any hurry to make its way down, almost pinned to the cloudless expanse of blue like a badge. Her dad called it summer, and it made everything patchy and dry, including her throat. With a sigh, Sitareh pulled to a stand, looking around for the aforementioned father figure. He'd been nearby earlier, leaf-dappled and thoughtful. When she couldn't spot him, she determined that he must have gone to look after her mother and Hallon, their threshold for suffering the temperature less than hers, bonded to the parched earth in less subtle ways than most. They would be okay, though – Chimalsi assured her of that. The heat was a burden at times, but it would ebb into reddened leaves and rain, milder weather that they'd grown accustomed to. Born in the spring, she thought it might be fun to see what this falling season consisted of, imagination piggybacking solely on her parents' explanations.

Still, she preferred to try and help than sit around waiting, the inaction bubbling fit to burst against her skin. A few steps brought her into direct sunlight, her hide reflecting a myriad of compound mirrors until she skittered into a line of shadows, playing an impromptu sneaking game. The legless slitheries had scales just like hers, a fact that made her believe she could be just as stealthy, given a chance and incentive. The role was ditched the second she detected trickling sounds ahead, white and damp to her dusty ears. Breaking into a trot, she bustled past batches of drooping flowers, nickering encouragement to them as an afterthought. Such plants regularly filled her belly and her eyes with contentment, but she knew from experience that they wouldn't last forever, even if they stayed rooted to the ground. The few she'd plucked for her hoard had shrunk, gone wrinkly like old ladies and finally disintegrated. She'd been perplexed, but avoided telling her mother, sensing her efforts to capture the blossoms for purposes other than eating would not go over exceptionally well.

Such thoughts ground to a halt once the stream came into her sights, thin and winding with purpose despite its dwindled state. Unlike any lurking adults, Sitareh's thirst was not to be denied on the basis of suspicions, a whoop of glee and forward flight startling nearby birds from their evening intermission. Toed hooves happily splashed while she used her tail like a sponge, dropping it to soak up water before arching it to wet her back. Her muzzle plunged in next, front teeth delicately selecting a pebble at the shallow bottom, maneuvering it into her mouth and sucking the coolness away. This was perfect, just big enough for her and for her family to enjoy. She needed to get back and find them, lead them here to replenish themselves. But as she turned to make her way back, a long-legged outline presented from the other side of the running water, and she recognized it as one of the fleet-footed creatures that spooked so easily, distant relatives to her.

"Hew'o." She greeted through a mouthful of stone, haste already forgotten as she fell back on her earlier quiet so as not to send her running. Leaves in colors similar to her tawny palette were draped across her neck and face, gold and brown and foreign. Her tongue pushed the little pebble to one side while she waited for an answering call, creating a lump that sat strangely on her striped features.

Out in the sunlight, the mare's dappled flanks remained delightfully fawn-spotted, the green and brown a familiar mesh to Sitareh's nature-bound aesthetic. Even so, the two halves of her looked to be joined by thin, golden curlicues, and she spent several minutes staring unabashedly at them, wondering at their composition, if they were somehow literally holding her together. Such concentration meant the furrows of anxiety on the other's brow went unnoticed, the filly absently prodding the stone to a more comfortable position against small jaws. It wasn't that hair not being hair was strange to her, or even that decorative elements were unheard of. Her father was arrayed in living armor, her mother a walking Eden - very little ever fazed her; it was more a matter of running into an adult on her own, and one so obviously hailing from her natural element.

The damp respite of the pebble had abandoned itself to the warmth of her mouth, but the texture kept her entertained for a few brief seconds afterward, still thoughtfully examining the creature across from her. Cloven hooves, leafy hair, a few blossoms studding her mane without any sign of wilting. Her ears were the most impressive things she'd ever seen, long and tapering like boat lily greens. Her sense of hearing must have been as keen as Laurelin's when she caught her and Hallon out playing after bedtime, if not better than that. Again, she checked to make sure she wasn't being loud by lightly clearing her throat, afraid of doing harm to sensitive eardrums on top of alarming her.

She was about to deliver the customary question of whether or not this dryad-lady knew her mother when her initial greeting was responded to in a normal tone. If she could handle her own voice at that level, surely she could handle hers. The girl brightened, rock clicking as she bent her neck to release it. Now that there was no obvious need to be quiet, she let her enthusiasm take point. "I'm Sitareh!" She volunteered, wet tail sending a spray along the sides of the bank as it wiggled. "What's yours? Do you say it in tree-language, or in shrub?" Or maybe something else she was not entirely acquainted with.

Greek? The foal puzzled over the new finding, trying to relate it back to the knowledge she had pooled from experience as well as her parents. Maybe greek was something like leek, in which case she was really more of a vegetable? That didn't sound right, though, even if her name had an unknown accent attached. Calixte. Maybe a name she'd given herself. When she asked about her mother and father, Sitareh blinked back into her previous mindset, remembering guiltily that she'd intended to lead them and her brother to the stream she was standing in. Soon, really soon, once this chat concluded she'd go get them in short order. Momma wouldn't want her to be impolite. But she was also reminded of an insatiable curiosity, one which knocked momentarily louder. "My daddy's Chimalsi, and my mom's Laurelin. Do you know her? She's got a special guardian tree, and so does my brother. It grows out of her back, like... wooooosh, and, um. It's really pretty, and it talks to her. But most trees do. They talk to me, too."

She was so preoccupied with getting the words out that she didn't feel any difference in her footing, the trickles frothing minutely by the shore. It wasn't until the mare was practically reared up with fear streaking her face that she paid it any attention, glancing down to see it had increased its flow somewhat. "Unhappy?" She repeated in confusion, stepping quickly forward as had been requested of her, shaking her feet off to show that she meant no disrespect. Water had always been the hardest element to understand, even when she'd been younger and more loose with translations. Despite perked ears, it only sounded a little disgruntled at most, but adolescence had brought with it a measure of doubt, an acceptance that she couldn't always be right. If Calixte understood it better, she wasn't about to disagree.

"You sure you don't speak tree?" She asked dubiously, glancing at the pale-eyed doe to her side. If she could comprehend a brook's babbling, trees seemed like the simpler lesson. Or maybe it had to do with prerequisites she was unaware existed.

The freak wave had the filly startling back, watching it raze the shores and continue on downstream, losing its white cap as it went. Her ears flattened uncertainly to the bend of her skull once the deed was done, body shivering faintly despite the heat once she realized that the water had drowned her distinct hoofprints before washing them away. She was no stranger to accidents, to what happened when someone wasn't careful, or was disrespectful, but she'd never seen such a violent reaction completed by such a serene entity. More than that, the deer-like mare had predicted it, though not in so many words. I'm sorry..." She murmured shamefacedly, still not entirely sure what silt was, only that it was apparently an enemy of streams everywhere. "I didn't know." Which was the truth, even if the absoluteness of it sometimes blurred for her, or made little sense.

When Calixte moved forward, Sitareh tensed and looked immediately toward where the last crest had originated from, afraid another would arrive on the tail of its twin and threaten the agile mare. But the water appeared to have exhausted itself, because it did nothing to dissuade her from taking a long, cool drink, and she came back to the banks unharmed. "I'll play less rough next time." She vowed softly, tail twisting unhappily at her mistake. It was actually a bit of a relief to hear that the frond-eared mare didn't know Laurelin, considering how embarrassingly unaware she'd been acting around elements she should have known better by now.

Mention of tree-language centered her again, and the kirin foal offered a wan smile, not sure why exactly talking back wouldn't be necessary. Wasn't it kind of rude to listen but never say anything in return? Still, Calixte had been right about the water being grumpy, so maybe she was also right about this. "I can a little... not as good as mom, but better than dad. I talk to lotsa things, but trees are easiest to hear." She shook out her front legs, feeling the damp that had swollen the bark on her knees and made motion troublesome. Even after the other voices had faded or became incomprehensible, the trees were there to reassure her that she hadn't lost her abilities.

A shiver of movement brought the deer-like mare's face closer to hers, giving the filly a better view of the incandescent whiteness that overtook her irises. "That's okay," Sitareh replied without a pause, not really understanding why an apology had been extended in the first place, considering Calixte had only been trying to keep her safe. Chimalsi had taken similar measures at times, using a stern tone where her mother's softer soprano failed to be effective. It seemed silly to be sorry if she was right. Still, she knew enough not to point out of the obvious to serve her curiosity, watching the dryad and carefully furling her legs to join her on the padded ground when it was requested.

Sitting still was not a natural position for the foal, and she shifted restlessly in place after a few seconds, feeling all the little stems and brutalized materials tickle at her belly, catching like scraps of paper in the scales that lined her shoulders. At the question, her own features gathered in lines of perplexity, making the tiger stripes under her eyes crinkle and become that much more apparent. How could someone so familiar with trees not be able to speak their language? As dumbfounded as Calixte was at her ability, the younger female was equally confused by her lack. "I've always been able to, even when I was real small. I didn't have to learn it, I don't think." Her tail curled around her flank, the bronzed tuft patting lightly in the leaf debris in contemplation. "I used to talk with more stuff, like the darters, and river rocks, and the squishy green water, but they don't talk back like they used to, and it's hard to make my tongue say it now. I've always been better with trees. They don't listen all the time, and some of 'em have a hard time paying attention, being so big, but the littler ones give me directions, and play I Spy, and let me eat their blossoms and fruit if I ask nice." If she was aware of her rambling, the kirin was unable to stop herself, content to tell this stranger with her elaborate native-garb anything she wished and more.

The emotion dawning on the other's face encouraged her to grow quiet once more, head canted slightly while she listened to the now content stream, dribbling itself into other, distant tributaries that would eventually empty into the vastness of the ocean. Even never having ventured beyond the safety of the woods, Sitareh would have known the great, roiling blueness for what it was, what it represented. She had caught a glimpse of it in the wave from before, the fury and the noise coupled with motions too fast to track, an entity to be acknowledged and respected at all costs. Her mind wandered slightly in that direction, envisioning the drape of it so close to the land, not unlike the aqua-tinged stone that she had so recently come across, abandoned on the path and destined to become part of her modest treasure knoll. Water in immeasurable quantities, or so she had been told, larger than the land she'd walked all of her short life.

The reverie ended when Calixte questioned her, attention snapping automatically back to the present. Teach? She wiggled in place with surprise, gazing at the dryad with a touch more seriousness than she'd previously displayed. Were kids supposed to teach adults stuff? It seemed only fair when the doe had been kind enough to keep her out of harm's way by correcting her etiquette. Still, the foal had never truly learned it herself, aside from a few, stray instances that involved her mother dwelling calmly nearby while she practiced. She had admitted as much before, but that did not seem to have dampened the mare's insistence.

"My mom'd teach you better…" She murmured, hesitating for a second before shrugging it off. "But I can try, if you really wanna. Lot of it is… thinking stuff at them, sorta being… um," She struggled to find the appropriate wording, brow furrowing in thought. "Like them; balanced-like, you know?" The necessary state of mental alignment seemed like it wouldn't be too difficult a concept, given that Calixte could already hear the trees, but Laurelin would have frowned at her skipping steps.

The filly plunged ahead without further explanation, darting to her feet and turning to select one of the saplings that shot up through the soil near the stream. Standing only slightly taller than she, her choice acquaintance was protected from the wind by its elders, nascent leaf-buds quivering when her breath touched them. Her horns itched faintly at the established contact, a similar note echoing in her bark-armored knees and the toed state of her hooves. From there, it was essentially a reflexive act, little to no thought involved as her larynx strained, cords vibrating a tone that thrummed like the creak of trees, the rustle of boughs, the slow-growing spread of roots sped up to the tune of her youthful voice. Layers upon layers of sound, song and language imperfectly cobbled together, but carefully executed nonetheless. The effort was brief, for the sapling was still self-aware enough to catch her meaning without needing her to drag out the syllables, its small, twig-like limbs stilling with what seemed to be consideration. She laid her plated nose against it while she waited, as affectionate as she was with her brother, and after a few moments there was a soft, inaudible answer. Beaming, Sita turned to the doe expectantly, tail tapping a tattoo against the earth. "See? Like that."

Silence reigned for a few minutes after her lesson, and the kirin-blooded filly's tail stopped its wagging, face scrunching up questioningly while her pupil digested the material. When Calixte finally spoke, Sitareh heard the note of underlying unhappiness that tinged her tone, a tiny frown pulling at her own mouth. "You don't even want to try?" She wheedled the doe softly, feeling a little let down in her own expectations. It wasn't that she'd anticipated the older mare to be able to do it straight away, picking it up like a mockingbird or some sort of color-accommodating, belly-sliding reptile; but she had been hoping for something more than simply admitting an inability. Her throat still itched faintly from the unusual form of speaking, but it was nothing she couldn't ignore for more pressing matters. Maybe her mother really would have been a preferable instructor, ever the patient mentor to Sitareh's buzzing insistence, but Calixte had asked her.

At the abrupt change in subject, the foal winced and straightened self-consciously, remembering another obligation that she'd accidentally set aside and lost in the jumble of her quick-moving thoughts. Her family was probably still thirsty, and here she'd been splashing around in the water and not even gone to fetch them yet. "Daddy probably is, he's good at findin' me." She acknowledged, turning to glance and see if perhaps the gold-streaked kirin was not there already, sternly disapproving and silent. Still, that meant that she was abandoning one quest for another, and Sita looked peripherally at the doe, feeling faintly deflated. It would have been one thing if she'd attempted to tree-speak and garbled it, but the flat refusal was foreign to her, hardly in her vocabulary.

Then again, maybe the leaf-bound mare just wanted to recite it by herself, without anyone standing nearby and offering suggestions. She perked immediately at that justification, offering an impulsive grin before darting back from whence she'd come, pausing to leap around and face the doe once more to assure her as an afterthought. "I can find 'em, don't worry. And I'll tell them about the water being touchy with bein' played in, and it'll be okay." Because in her mind, everything was invariably okay, and while she'd had her share of eye-opening events for the day, it had still been fun, more or less. And she had things to tell Hallon to take his mind off the miserable heat, adventures that he would bemoan missing, but be content to hear secondhand.