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Allowance? Mal looked a little confused at the unfamiliar word, but covered it quickly. Oh, yes, an allowance! He knew what that was. Right. He watched the little performance, wondering just how he could get Aeron to come back over here. It was getting late, he was tired, and he wanted to go home. Maybe it was just his own anxiety, but he had that damned ‘watched’ feeling lately…

At least Iris was making some sort of progress with Sekhmet. Interestingly enough, Aeron had given up the bag to Sekhmet. How adorable. Hm. That gave him an idea of how to get Aeron to follow him…

Aeron puffed out his neck feathers a little with pride as the black female accepted his gift. As she attempted to figure out how to get into it, he trotted around her, apparently enjoying the sight. As Iris’ voice came out, though, he looked back over at the humans curiously, wondering just what they would try next. It was so hard to tell sometimes… he understood the word ‘treats’, ‘no’, and ‘weeks’. ‘No’ was bad and ‘treats’ was ‘delicious little things’ and ‘weeks’ was ‘forever’ to Aeron’s brain. He squawked at this apparent injustice. Depriving someone of delicious little things forever just for a game?! How mean!

Meanwhile, he noticed that Mal was… walking away? The male gryphon let out a little noise, something like a cross between a trill and a whine. But… they were playing… why was he leaving? Hesitantly, the gryphon took a few steps closer, apparently forgetting about the jingly coins.

Aeron shifted from foot to foot, making that worried noise again. It usually worked. Usually, when he made this noise, Mal made that funny human noise that humans made when they saw something ‘cute’ and then he would get hugs. It didn’t work this time though, as Mal merely ignored him and continued walking. He didn’t mean to upset Mal! He just wanted to play…

Although, there would be other days to play, Aeron decided, momentarily dipping his head down to collect that bag of coins once more. Mal seemed to set a great store by these coins; hopefully, it would help Aeron back into the human’s good spirits. Dejectedly, Aeron followed Sekhmet, his tail drooping a little.

Mal smirked to himself as he heard that noise. Damn, but it was sooo cute. “He’ll follow,” he said easily, knowing Aeron as well as anyone could. “I know it seems cruel, threatening to leave them behind, but it always works.” At least, he hadn’t come across a situation when it hadn’t worked, not yet.

After a few moments, Aeron butted his head against Mal’s thigh, almost making the man fall over again. Shaking his head slightly, Mal petted the gryphon, scratching around his ears. Aeron made a purring noise in response, enjoying the attention. He had, apparently, gotten a lot better about all the touching since Iris had last seen Mal and Aeron.

Mal extended his hand underneath Aeron’s beak. “Drop it,” he said in a firm voice. Aeron looked at Mal ruefully and shook his head, banging the coins against his neck once more. Apparently, the gryphon wanted to keep the jangly coins for now. Just because he came when Mal called did not mean he would do whatever the man said!

With a sigh, Mal decided it didn’t really matter that much. “Fine, keep the damn things. Don’t complain to me when you can’t get the taste of leather out of your beak, Aeron,” he chided the gryphon before giving him another affectionate neck rub. “The gathering? Oh, yes, I plan on attending. And bringing Aeron as well, so that I’m not completely bored.”

He didn’t think he would actually be bored. There was a non-fail way of spicing gatherings like this up, although he was not sure how acceptable it would be in this particular society. It was so difficult to tell sometimes. Now he had a new non-fail way of making things interesting: telling Aeron that someone had a treat for him and it was his duty to go find it.

“Will you be there with Sekhmet?” he asked. His tone wasn’t exactly ‘casual’. It sounded pretty much the same as all of his other tones. His voice was almost perpetually set on ‘casual’. Well, except when he was threatening to force-feed testicles to groomers. Then it was just set on ‘threatening’.

Hopefully Aeron would be able to behave himself. He had gotten a lot better about people, although with today’s performance at the groomers, maybe he hadn’t made as much progress as Mal had thought. Or maybe Aeron was just stressed. Poor gryphon… it probably was a little startling to have a bunch of people suddenly want to wash you all over and stuff. That would have freaked Mal out more than a little. Yes, even if those involved were really, really hot men, he still would have been skittish, since things like that just did not happen.

Maybe not to the point of mauling type of skittish, but skittish nonetheless.

“I suppose that’s true. There are a few groomers out there who won’t be able to use their hands for the next few weeks thanks to Sekhmet. And biting people really isn’t appropriate for this sort of occasion.” He could think of one or two occasions where it wasn’t appropriate, but that only made it more fun. He didn’t mention these, of course.

Aeron took the moment to run his beak through one of Sekhmet’s feathers once more, hoping she wouldn’t mind the affectionate gesture in front of the humans. “You’re so adorable when you blush,” he teased lightly. He nipped at her ear at the end of his sentence.

Aeron looked from the open door to the humans and then back to Sekhmet. Say… she had liked it when he had held the door open for her before. Maybe she would like it again here? He couldn’t exactly hold the door open, but he could make a grand gesture out of waiting for her to go first. Spreading his wings, he stepped back gracefully and made a sort of ‘bowing’ gesture towards Sekhmet and said, “After you, Sekhmet.” Aww… now there was a sight to melt just about any woman’s heart.

The male gryphon patiently waited until after Sekhmet had climbed inside before clambering aboard himself and settling down next to her. He yawned. It had been a good day.

Mal, not being a huge believer in the whole ‘ladies first’ thing, climbed in afterwards and made himself comfortable. He told Iris where he was staying. At the moment, it was an inn mostly reserved for traveling lordlings and the like. Apparently, he was not quite ready to introduce himself to his noble ‘family’ at this point… still, he agreed with his gryphon. It had been a good day and everything was in place.