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Mother had told her she could go wander away now. She said that Aylin was big enough to make it on her own. And she knew she was, but she was still scared. Though her thoughts were completely scrambled at times, one thing always rang out clear: fear. Fear of failing and crawling back home to mommy. Fear of actually getting in trouble and dying. Fear of the unknown. At this point in her life, the pale lioness with golden eyes felt terror. It made her stick close to her mother, with a few of their siblings. Not all of them, like their brother, had just run off.

Tonight, with the moon shining so brightly in it's fullest, Aylin stood on a little ledge of a rock, just staring at the moon. Her tail flicked back and forth as she tried to calm the shakes that were running through her muscles. She was exhausted already and she couldn't sleep. Her family was no where in sight. She had wandered off, gotten lost and couldn't get their scent again. It was her first night away from 'home'.

Mirsajadi had realized at some point in the last two days that he was trailing about a day behind the path Gliri had taken to her home, wherever that was, and very deliberately made himself wait for another two days before striking out in an entirely different direction, though not the opposite one, since that would take him back the way he'd just come. He didn't want to look like he was following her. They had agreed not to see each other again after their night in her old den, and he would hold to that.

Still, it was night and it was dark and he was not in the mood to think about the past anymore. His ear still throbbed lingeringly from its piercing and his hind paw was a little sore from the bangle hitting it with every step. He had not quite learned how to adjust his stride to accommodate his new jewelry. He liked how he looked with the gold bands, vainly enough, but they would take some getting used to. He distracted himself by admiring the way the moon glinted on the gold for a few moments, letting the shifting shine lull him toward sleep.

Then the wind changed direction and he caught a semi familiar scent, vaguely reminiscent of Gliri's. He knew he shouldn't, but he climbed to his feet and began moving toward an outcropping of rock.

Down down down, forever her brain was failing her and shutting down. Like at that deep, baritone voice that vibrated through her ears and made her squirm a bit. It sounded really good to her. That was enough to get those yellow eyes of hers on his figure as the muscular male continued to move closer. Aylin was like her mother, small, but just a little bigger than her mother. Not quite to the fully grown adolescent look, but at least she didn't look like a cub. To Aylin, she still had all kinds of awkward baby fat on her, she wasn't nearly ready for an encounter with a male! Why hadn't she gone with her sister to meet that one boy? That would have been the smart thing to do.

Finally, the words registered in her head and Aylin nodded. ".....She's always lovely when she's out, proudly, not hiding behind a cloud." The female said, her own voice, while definitely not done changing, was starting to sound husky. Thanks mom.

He was... interesting to look at. She'd never seen such a pattern on a lion coat before. Sure, Zebra, but... The stripes made her want to move closer and count them. Oh, what a space cadet.

Mirsajadi had not expected the small lioness's voice to hover on the edges of huskiness. He also had not expected that he would find it a particularly attractive or appealing quality. Usually his tastes tended more toward sweet-voiced lionesses whose range was higher, closer to a mezzo soprano. Gliri's voice hadn't been like that, but neither had her tones been husky. She was simply expressive. And he shouldn't be thinking of her right now.

"Why do you call the moon 'she'?" he asked.

It was not part of his pride's system of beliefs to think of gods as anything special or to imbue non-persons with person-like qualities. At least, the gods thing was pride-wide and Mirsajadi had never seen the point in treating inanimate, non-living objects as if they were otherwise. Most of the time he thought it was stupid, but tonight it seemed like maybe it wasn't so stupid. Really, the lioness looked a bit luminescent herself, and it wouldn't have been difficult for Mirsajadi to stretch his imagination and see her as the moon personified and come to earth for some reason.

"Yes, I do. I sleep during the day, but not long. I play with Sister Sun as well. I don't need a lot of sleep." She gave him a sort of dreamer smile before looking him over after he said his name. Something about this lion wasn't.... honest. Trickery, perhaps, or a sharp wit who could figure out different outcomes and work according to that. Either way, Aylin was intrigued instead of put off. Her golden eyes narrowed again as he asked his question about her coming-froms, but she'd done it to him. Why not answer him.

Nodding, she rose a brow. "I do. With my four sisters, one brother, mom and dad and my aunt sometimes." Clearly, Aylin was trying to get the point across she would be missed, and sorely if anything were to happen to her! Only that wasn't true. Not anymore. Her brows knitted together after that and her face fell. "Sorry... I'm... I'm just.... I haven't been away from home before. .....It's my first night." To show how truly young she was.

Mirsajadi read into Aylin's words that she was a lioness who tried to please others, and that did please him. It was a desirable trait in a banu, as was beauty. She was definitely beautiful, at least by moonlight. He wondered what she looked like in the sun's more golden radiance. Perhaps he would occasion to find out.

"It was unworthy of me to suggest that you would be underhanded in your dealings with the moon and sun," Mirsajadi said, which was about as close to an apology as he was likely to come. He didn't often regret things, or apologize for them. He could, however, admit that he should not have said or done something. It didn't mean he necessarily had to be sorry for it, depending on how he phrased it.

"A large family, then," he observed. "Like mine, in a way."

Mostly it wasn't like his, he suspected. His father's sons competed amongst each other for attention and favor from their father and his siblings' and half-siblings' mothers were less mates than property. If he had aunts or uncles, he could not call them to mind, but he was glad they didn't live with him anyway. His family was already too large, he felt. It was very difficult to stand out in such a family.

"Where I come from, young lions are sent out into the rogue lands to find someone to stay with them as a companion for ever and always, and they're not supposed to return until they have accomplished it. I...have been searching since I was just an adolescent." He didn't say this in such a way that he would seem to be trying to garner pity, because he wasn't. Mirsajadi hated to be pitied. He was trying to be personable.

She was about to say sorry for not introducing herself when that playful comment slipped from him and caught her attention. A small smile was on her face as she nodded. Clearly, he didn't want to guess her name, and hadn't meant to say it. He probably wouldn't ever guess her name, anyway. So, she laughed again and gave him a beaming beautiful smile. "No... I'd love to hear what you think, but you'd never guess it. I am Aylin. I apologize for not introducing myself. Besides family...." Well, she didn't want to say that out loud, did she?

Aylin could be hurried, if someone wanted clumsy results or her stumbling over herself gracelessly. She didn't like to be hurried, but Aylin knew she didn't work the fastest, or think the fastest, even.

Mirsajadi's smile was not feigned when he gave it. Oh, he could fake a smile with the best of them, many different smiles, in fact, for all sorts of occasions, but mostly he was just relieved to have been spared his mouth's folly. He knew he would never guess her name and he was not really in the mood for the sort of flirting that came with name guessing. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure this lioness would pick up on a flirting attempt like that. He also wasn't sure if he was in the mood to flirt. He'd been about to fall asleep not too long ago, after all.

"Aylin," he repeated, checking the pronunciation and also the fit of the name. Sometimes people's names sounded perfectly normal when they said them, but the speaking them himself they didn't seem quite right. He'd never understood that.

"Aylin?" he said then, with a different emphasis and somewhat more urgency. He knew the name, but not because anyone had told it to him.

When he was very young he'd had a vision of a pale lioness beside a pool and someone had said the name Aylin in the background, though he had not known it for a name at the time, or anything else, really. It had been the first vision he ever experienced. It was still difficult for him to accept that what he had always believed to be hallucinations were truly visions of things that had yet to happen or were happening somewhere else at the same time.

"I've seen you before, I think. In a way." The admission didn't exactly come easily to him, but he had never met anyone from his visions before.

She didn't move or speak until he was finished, and then she looked down at her paws, feeling foolish. Her mother had the same visions. Often times her mother told Aylin stories of a stranger she would meet one day. She didn't know what this stranger looked like, or even a name, but momma told her that he would be a good man. Complicated, but good at heart and that Aylin would do best to go with him when the time came.

Of course, she realized now, that this could be what her mother was talking about. This male right here. He wasn't asking her to go anywhere, though....

".... Momma has visions like yours... I didn't know others did." Aylin looked up to him and sighed lightly. "She tells stories of her visions, because she gets mainly... ...feelings? Maybe some vision, but she says they are always dark and full of figures. She can make out those she knows, but strangers are black shapes..." She interrupted herself with a wide yawn. It made her remember that she was so very tired still.

Mirsajadi was somewhat relieved when his explanation seemed to give Aylin cause to relax. He hadn't been sure that it would. He had only come to learn that his hallucinations were actually visions - gifts, even - very recently. There were others in his pride who experienced them, he knew, including one of his father's banu and his half-niece Bad. The knowledge was still sinking in for him, and the lioness who had told him about it had not been able to tell him a great deal, since she was not someone who had visions. She said only that she had a sister who experienced them.

But if Aylin's mother had visions, or something like them, it would make sense that she would not be bothered by his admission, and would actually find it more comforting than the thought he had been following her. Well, probably most things would be more comfortable than the thought of being followed by a strange lion for a young lioness on her own for the first time. He had gathered already that she was not as fond of solitude as he was.

"Aylin,' he said, "I think the moon and I have tired you out. It's time for me to let you get some sleep and hope that the moon will consent to do the same. So I bid you good night and pleasant dreams."

He hesitated, debating internally for a few seconds whether he wanted to add the next bit which was almost an invitation to seek him out. He decided to add it. He still hadn't figured out why she made him speak so carelessly.

"If you need anything, I'll be sleeping on the other side of those hills I think." It was far enough away that she shouldn't feel threatened by his presence.