Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lithian swallowed, pulse beating a drummer’s rhythm in his throat as he settled beside Cas, making sure he was fully stable before he reached out again. Tracing one, nervous finger over the outline of a feather, he flushed, eyes darting up to Cas and then back before he trailed the backs of his fingers down the wing, following the grain of the feathers — impossibly soft, and warm.

“Yes,” he murmured, almost to himself as much as Casseth. “I think they’re beautiful.” Then, as though realizing abruptly what had just left his mouth, Lithian hastily drawing his hand back. “I—I—I mean…” Why did he have to be so obscenely odd at the worst of times? He tucked his fingers into his lap, watching them with absolute focus as he tugged at the hem of his cloak. “I like them, yes. We should…” He eyed Casseth from beneath his lashes, “…go fishing again sometime. I liked that, too.”

Lithian’s stomach dropped briefly, not even wanting to consider the possibility of not bumping into Casseth again somehow, and his mind raced, dragging over his options before his eyes widened a fraction with a thought. Lifting out his wrist and pulling back the thick, furred cuffs of his over-tunic, Lithian caught part of the knot on a simple, blue-leather cord and bead bracelet between his teeth, working at unfastening it with the fingers of his opposite hand.

After a bit of time fiddling, he eventually worked it loose and held it in his palm: long enough to tie around almost any wrist, the main body of it was a sturdy, dyed-blue suede leather cord with a single white and earth-brown bead held in place by two knots in the center to either side of it. The Bhardvaris family sigil. A small token of his identity he’d worn with him since before he could remember.

Someone would ask how’d he’d lost it, undoubtedly, but no one but his family members would miss it, and he could always tell them it had been torn off in his scuffle with dragons and brief dance with death. Smiling at the irony, Lithian held it out to Casseth.

“This has the mark of my family on it, the Bhardvaris sigil. Anyone who knows of us would recognize it. Most…may not speak with you, but you said you travel often enough to Eowyn? I have a friend there, a woman who goes by Jheavanna Riede. She ran a book store on the Celestial Plane when I was a boy, but recently moved to the lower worlds permanently because the stories she sold…”

Lithian flushed, shrugging.

“She sells books that tell stories about the races that most…popular opinions don’t agree with. She won’t judge you at all for your hybrid status. The last time I saw her, she gave me a book as a gift, and a consolation for a fairly…er, embarrassing encounter. She lives on the southern docks and runs the bookstore called ‘Between Three Worlds’. If you find her, show her this, and tell her that I wanted to thank her again for the book…she’ll know you’re my friend, and you can ask her where I am. I’ll keep her up to date on my whereabouts, and…maybe we can see each other more often than we think?”

Lith nodded immediately. “I can tell my family I lost it after I was attacked by those dragons. Which…” He rubbed at a horn, flushing, “…is true…of sorts. And I want you to have it. I…” He dipped his eyes. “I will be here for another week, training, but…I would like to see you again after.” He eyed Casseth surreptitiously, watching him from beneath his lashes. “I’d like to be friends.”

Lithian watched Casseth try to tie it, failing, and the corner of his lips edged up despite the nature of Cas’ words. “I can help you tie it, if you like?” he offered. “And I don’t care what they’d say, though I doubt I’ll tell them in as many words. Perhaps I will just say I befriended a boy who saved my life and took me ice fishing. And…” Looking up to meet Casseth’s eyes, Lithian smiled, warmly as he could manage, “…I would be honored to be your first.”

Lithian bit his lip, smile attempting to take over his face even as he shook his head. “I think I know the way now…hopefully. I don’t want to make you late and get you in trouble, anyway.”

Carefully, Lithian caught the ends of the leather cord, flushing as his fingers brushed unintentionally against the underside of Casseth’s wrist as he fastened it but trying not to draw much attention to the matter. When he finished, he tucked his hands back safely inside his furred cuffs and under his cloak and shot Cas a sheepish grin.

“Thank you for taking me out of there. I’ll…see you again sometime?”

At Casseth’s nod, they said their goodbyes. Lithian did manage to make it back to camp without incident — as much to his own surprise as anyone else’s — and realized belatedly that he ought to have thought up a better excuse for his belated absence than: ‘I went…walking?’

Next time, he told himself. Particularly because Ara looked far from convinced, and Lithian’s skills at fibbing were severely limited at best.