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Midmorning light drifted through cracks in the canopy, catching on leaves, dew-abandoned webs, the plating that marched in overlapping jade across a youthful face. The filly had been standing still and attentive since before the moon faded, staring down a tree that gazed back through a single warped eye. On the other side, all appeared dark and silent, so black that it might have writhed with the occasional flicker of activity. Sitareh's breath was shallow, quiet, and that she was capable of such stillness was a surprise in itself. The sun burned a path along the ridges of her scales the longer she waited, creating trickling streams of illumination that were lost on her single-minded pursuit. In a few hours, the brightness would reach her eyes and she'd be forced to shift, losing the match she'd been playing at. But until that defeat came, the thrill was all that mattered, barely blinking while her tongue flicked out to wet her dry mouth.

A shiver of genuine movement from within the trunk, and her ears tipped slightly forward, the rest of her growing motionless to compensate. There, that was what she'd been waiting on, a slender obsidian dart that flowered elegantly from a feathered face. A hummerbird! It was lovely, a purplish hue dotting its throat, laced with wild greens and a body as small as a minnow. "Hi!" She greeted happily, pleased that her patience had resulted in a show. Dismay followed once the tiny creature quickly ducked back away into the hollow, wings beating a frantic percussion inside the space. Huh? That was her friendliest hello and everything. "Um," Sitareh angled her head, hoping to catch another peek of the elusive animal. "Didn't mean to scare you. Please come out?" When there was no response, the filly sighed and stepped back, showing how prepared she was to accommodate the other. Her mother would have been disappointed that her only daughter had managed to corner the bird in the first place, though it had been purely chance, and not at all her fault. "I'm not going to do anything bad, I promise. I just want to look at you better..." All the hummerbirds she'd seen in the past were smears in the air, a whisper of sound and color that vanished before either her or her brother could identify them. The opportunity to spy one when it wasn't a vibrant ghost was beyond appealing.

Then again, maybe she wasn't going about this the right way. The girl mulled, digging her toes into the soil to center herself. It would have been simpler if there was a universal language, but even the hints she heard were jumbled sometimes, lost on a mind not geared to listen the way she strained to. Clearing her throat, she offered a tentative hum, shaking her head when the tone came out all wrong. She tried again and again, this time softer, another deeper, mimicking the rapid wing beat racket. The branches overhead swayed, seemingly amused by her effort, but no one discouraged her struggling attempts to hit the right note. Was that one more bee-like? Humming, not buzzing. She could get the hang of this, she just needed some practice.

Despite her inspired efforts, the hummerbird would not be moved from its shelter, preferring the guaranteed safety of the tree's muffling layers to any ideas she might advance with her sloppy accent. Sitareh's tail dragged in deliberate circles along the ground while she thrummed softly to herself, replaying them to sound out the subtle differences. The vibrations felt funny in her throat, unformed words like bats circling in a dark tunnel, scraping furred bodies against the walls. Some of them tickled, others almost made her cough for the sharpness, and the entire stop-and-start serenade was intended for a very select audience. Which was why a similar noise ringing out behind her caused the filly to hush, leaning around to peer without budging. Her brother would have inevitably found her, the link between them strengthened by blood and affection. Maybe he could coax the flighty bundle out of its hiding place if he promised it a perch in his own miniature tree. Chances insisted that even a hummerbird wouldn't mind feeling big for once, and the twiggy branches with their seed-sized leaves would be plenty tempting.

But it was not Hallon smiling and watching her, was not anyone she knew. She rounded on him, eyes wide from being caught off guard rather than fear, taking all of the stranger in with a searching glance. He was built and striped as she was, but fitted with wings the likes of which she'd never seen before. Four of them rode on his back, cloudy creams and sky blues vying for attention among the forest shades. The first set was feathered, she noted with fascination, while the second, underlying pair was strangely sheer, resembling the glassy spans she viewed most often on insects. Did that make him a bird, or some kind of wasp? It all went back to the way he'd called out to her, and the amateur linguist was somewhat stumped by that. It didn't sound like either, really, so it must have been something entirely separate.

Sitareh took a few unselfconscious steps forward to examine him more closely, intent on locating other practical indicators of species with flared nostrils. His eyes were an intelligent brown, ears pointed and face classically sculpted, but a downward tilt of her head confirmed his hooves were oddly unsplit. It was then that she gleefully spied yet another pair of wings, tacked on to his inner ankles and wavering slightly. He was absolutely covered in them! No bird or beast she'd ever seen boasted so many, not even the flitting dragonjewels with their long tails and bulging eyes, and she'd thought they had more than anything.

"Hmmbrrrvmmm?" She tried back with an inquisitive murmur of her own, hopefully asking after his heritage or something similar. But it still wasn't coming out right, and she shook her head with a sheepish expression. She was just not doing well at this today, and she was normally so good at it. The hummerbird had been at least partially intelligible, but this was beyond new to her. "Sorry, m'not very good at it yet. Could you go slower?" Whether or not he understood her natural tongue was uncertain, but she couldn't help reverting to it, an apologetic quirk to her mouth for the lapse.

Sitareh waited to see if he could make sense of her limitations, a doubtful spark igniting in her belly when his eyes seemed to bulge at her last words, struggling with internal comprehension. But it was quickly doused by a friendlier expression, and she was equally surprised when he reverted to her natural tongue with ease, the filly only too willing to share in his unabashed grin with its universal meaning. "I thought you were some kind of flying thing!" She announced, delighted with their shared fluency and showing it by prancing slightly in place, her bark-hewn knees rattling at the gesture. "They usually talk that way, you know? I was gonna try chirping next, 'cause you have all those feathers n' stuff. They're pretty." Like dawn on an overcast day, or when snow crusted the edges of ancient riverbeds, but she settled for snuffling at them when he drew nearer, extending her neck and trying to decide if the second pair on his back was really there, or if it was some sort of afterimage. A mere-age, her daddy would have called it. They looked like they would taste of atmosphere, or misty rain, and she poked out the pink bud of her tongue at the temptation, retracting it and switching her gaze to his face instead when he spoke. It was probably rude to lick someone without permission, anyway.

There was still the unresolved issue of whether or not one of his parents was actually a bird, but the urge to ask left her when he gave his name, the first syllable vaguely crow-like and seemingly an answer in itself. The attempt at flattery sailed by unacknowledged, more keen on the exchange than her previous mix-up."I'm Sitareh, but you can call me Sita, if you want. It's easier to remember." Her name had been shortened to the near-endearment as far back as her memory stretched, and she saw no reason to keep it from a potential playmate. Besides, he was nice so far, and the only other foal she'd seen that wasn't her brother had been the colt who'd had a hard time understanding how tag worked. He'd been small, and rather shy, a trait she had a hard time relating to, but still accommodated to the best of her abilities.

Recalling suddenly the other shy creature that had drawn her attention last, she glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see the hummerbird zooming off, utilizing her distraction to escape. She huffed unhappily under her breath, ignoring the welling disappointment to turn back to her less skittish acquaintance. He was not descended from the same stock as hummerbirds, that was for sure. Maybe those long-necked birds that walked on stilts were a closer relative. "D'you want to play a game?" She inquired hopefully, not in the mood to mourn her missed opportunity.

An angeni? Sitareh mused over that, forehead wrinkling around the protrusion of her smallest horn like it was the seat of all her focus. The filly had never heard of such a thing before, but the cadence to the word, the way it fell from his mouth and settled with gentle moth-beats against her ears was nearly enough to go on. It made sense that something called an angeni would sprout wings like flowers did petals, blooming with them until they were nearly hidden beneath the weight of so many feathers, all air and noiselessness and maybe a touch of the sky they held ransom in their hollow bones. "So you can fly," she repeated, the one curiosity she couldn't overcome on her own, because a thing that flew was a flying thing, right? If she'd skipped some logical step in her conclusion, she was blind to it, eyeing his wings and the path of the vanished hummerbird with a sense of wonder. Could he be a ghost too, if he wanted? He was a little big, but not much bigger than her, and with so many wings doing so many motions, it didn't seem impossible that they would blur together.

His question regarding her makeup brought her back to his cheery voice, surprised by the direction of his words, especially seeing as her brother was the more obviously tree-blessed of the two of them. She was just normal, she supposed, nothing really outlandish about her. The scales, the horns, her tri-pod, wood-grain hooves, all of them were a reflection of her parents, features which were more or less typical sights in her limited worldview. Her mother told her she was special, of course, but she told Hallon that as well, and even she could partially understand that it was merely something mommies told their children. "I'm just a Sitareh," she assured him, answering his smile with her own. "My mum and Hallon have trees, but only on their backs. They're not all tree." That seemed an important distinction, even if she wasn't altogether certain why.

When Kahiau began listing her traits as desirable, she did not immediately follow his line of thinking, head canting to pick up on the spill of speech. The final compliment caught under her snout scales and made her face heat faintly beneath them, pleased that he'd taken the same interest in her appearance that she had in his. And he thought she was awesome? That sounded... kind of nice, even if the meaning was a bit obscure. It wasn't anything like being called special, because he wasn't her mother, wasn't even her brother trying to make her feel better after a not-very-good day. "You'd look silly with all that and wings," she informed him with a short laugh, though the noise was not unkind. When he sidled closer and within range, she retaliated by bumping the underside of his jaw with her thinly plated nose, eyes dancing like breeze-whipped grass. "Besides, you look awesome too, ya know." The praise was easy to pay when he'd started it, and she really did like his wings, the whole handful of them and their powdery softness. If she could have been anything other than a Sitareh, she might have picked an angeni, if only to see what it felt like to have all those extra muscles where the base of the pinions connected to his back and ankles. Flight wouldn't have been a bad addition, either, even if she had a hard time envisioning her forest from any other angle than among the trunks, hooves cradled by fallen leaves.

Then there was the invitation to give him a nickname! She beamed, trying to decide while she studied him, looking for something distinct. His name didn't lend to any immediately obvious shortening, but she could always improvise, and he had given her enough room to pick and choose by not setting out limitations in the first place. Her first instinct was to go with something like Not-a-Bird, but she wanted it to be something he was, not something he wasn't. His pale golden coat was something that vied for her attention, but the blue creeping across his wingspan was equally remarkable. "What about Honeydew?" she proposed, finding that she liked the shape of it on her tongue, never mind that it was no shorter than Kahiau. Honey and dew, two things she was fond of, and so simple to combine. It was cute, with an implied sweetness that seemed to suit her new playmate.

Before he could reply to her suggestion, the foal darted away, her tufted tail curling over her back like a well-trained serpent. His admission of few prior playmates hardly deterred her, used to fumbling in the dark if it ultimately meant fun was to be had. "Don't worry, it's easy. We can play tag, or hide'n'seek, or, or… rock-skip, or sun-race, or…" She struggled to think of more, most of them nameless activities that she and Hallon had invented on days when there was nothing to be found and added to her treasure trove. Beyond that, she hadn't considered the full ramifications of having a friend who could take off and perch on a cloud somewhere while she ran in circles beneath him. It hardly seemed to matter when she had a willing participant, his enthusiasm matching her own. "What sort of games do you like, Honeydew?" she asked when she'd run out of ideas, prancing around him without any sign of ill-intent, merely unable to keep still any longer.

The pleasure he derived from his brand new nickname had the filly giggling, her own delight fanned ever-higher in the presence of such an agreeable nature. She thought he might like it! Who didn't like honey, really? Even Laurelin had a special weakness for it, and papa had never hesitated to acquire any number of sticky amber combs for her when the opportunity presented itself. "Don't tell the yellow buzzbuzzes, though, or they might think you're theirs," she warned half-jokingly. Her own experience with the fuzzy insects was limited to the fact that Chimalsi sometimes returned from his honey-grubbing adventures with welts in places where his armor failed to extend. For good measure, she sidled close and attempted to aim a low, ominous buzz in his direction, entirely unlike the noises she'd been making at the hummerbird minutes prior. "If you hear that, flap away, okay?" Her voice had taken on a more sincere air, not about to have her new friend injured in even the mildest sense. Besides, he didn't have the armor her daddy did, so there was no telling what a horde of stingers might inflict on the unprepared.

But the somber note could only linger for so long, and she was suddenly back to jittering in place, intent on his words and what they might ultimately spell in terms of having fun. All the little mechanisms that went into stretching out his wingspan captivated her for a bare second, gaze flickering back to his open face when he explained his so-called deficiencies. It wasn't really all that different from learning other stuff, she supposed, even if his wings were an indelible part of him. Maybe it was like finding how to separate the strands of a conversation when it was taking place in more than one language, the difference between a tenuous understanding and truly knowing. In that context, she could sympathize easily.

His promise of tricks proved enticing, and her expression lit up accordingly. Flying was a little tricky on its own, from the sound of things, and that alone would have been enough to quell her curiosity. But here he was offering more, and how could she possibly turn that down? "You'll be a good flyer one day, Honeydew, I know it," Sitareh said firmly, ruining it with a laugh. "Even the landing part." It made sense that alighting on the ground would cause the most trouble once he was up in the air; after all, who would want to come down from there unless they absolutely needed to?

The filly waited patiently while he sorted through her offer, accepting his deference without batting an eye when he claimed ignorance and effectively handed the choice back. This might take a bit of thinking since her favorite game tended to vary, depending on whatever new rules she and Hallon had fashioned to go along with it. She cast around for a starting point, something to inspire a decision or spawn a completely new concept. When nothing immediately presented itself, Sitareh glanced down and spied her own shadow woven among the cast of the canopy, fading in and out as it careened harmlessly over the mulch. "Could play shadow snag," she suggested brightly, her hooves immediately darting out at all sides to shift her center of gravity, tail creeping around as though it would reach out and prod him. “S'like tag, sorta, but we catch each other’s shadowy parts instead. See, if I step in your shadow, then you’re it.” Sitareh lifted a hoof and set it delicately down on the elongated stretch of his umbral body to illustrate, looking up to confirm he understood. The game would be a little difficult, what with the hour and the shade already cluttering their playing field, but the filly was dead set on it not being impossible.