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Gently, gently; light footsteps, take care in your foot placement. Watch where you're going, don't step on any twigs if you can avoid them; be the wind, be a tuft of dandelion down on the breeze-

CRACK!

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" With the breaking of one branch, the silence of the forest was broken in one fell swoop. It had been a proud silence, a companionable silence, even an enjoyable silence, but that one branch had ruined everything. And Robelia had never been a mare of mild emotion, one to simply accept when things went wrong and move on. No, with her, everything she did was a passion; in every activity, every chore, every moment of her life was embraced with almost militant zeal. It was only natural that with such high passions involved, frustration was bound to erupt from time to time.

Right now, she was more than a little 'frustrated.' It had been several weeks since the conversation with her father that had so provoked her. A child of the mountains, Robbie had been born, bred, and brought up in one of the closest and most loving herds in the region. But there were certain facets of herd life that had chafed at Robbie; most of all, the rule that mares were not allowed to serve the herd as border guards or scouts. Robbie had always idolized the herd protectors, whose numbers included her fathers, some brothers, friends, and cousins. But in spite of her best efforts, her (incredibly reasonable) request to learn to fight and serve alongside the stallions had been tersely rejected by the one stallion who had the power to assist: her father.

Having been a 'daddy's girl' since birth, Robelia had known talking Grencia around to her point of view would be rough. She had been disappointed, but not surprised, when Grencia had refused to so much as consider the idea, even going so far as to twist her complaints about the tedium of mare's work into disrespect for her mother and the other herd mares.

Obviously, things were not going to cooperate with her desires in the Summit, her family's herd. So she dove into 'plan B', which was leaving the Summit for the lowlands, in quest for one of her numerous brothers. She'd never met this particular brother, but like all males of the herd he had been trained. She knew that he was a free-spirit, and she was gambling on the hope that he, until their more traditional father and older brothers, would be willing to train a female.

~~~

There were certainly complications to the plan; for starters, she'd never see Fenghuang, and had no idea where he lived. But these were of no matter to Robbie, who was confident that if she remained positive and pressed on, she would persevere. So far, it had been a good trip; she'd made it out of the Summit lands without being stopped, had made it past the boulder fields without running in the boogeyman, had found a chicken, and had made it into the forest. She was working on her physical skills; balance and grace, speed, strength...and stealth.

Obviously, stealth was not proving her friend, and she swore again as she kicked at the offending branch, a branch which she had, most frustratingly, snared with her mane! "Damn it!"

The aforementioned chicken, a brilliantly green fellow who had been resting up in the branches of a tree, opened one eye and looked down at her. "I don't think this is very stealthy, Miss Robbie."

It did not bode well for Robelia's long-term survival in a forest setting, her inability to focus on the world at large and her own immediate concerns. The sad truth was that she was being woefully unobservant, having heard and seen no trace of the bear before the wails and distressed noises of a creature in pain broke in on her cursing. Later, she would have cause to look back on the moment and blush; if Chain had been a bear of sinister purposes instead of a bear of...social purposes, it might have gone quite poorly for Shambles, Robbie, or both!

She had been in the process of formulating a sharp response to Shambles' 'observations,' when the loud, anguished cries of pain, coming from quite close to them, made her practically jump out of her skin. It was somewhat ironic, to be taken unawares when she was ostensibly practicing stealth, but that was the long and short of it.

A quick glance around and she saw the bear for the first time. It wasn't a large bear, thank goodness, but it was curled up on the ground, moaning and crying out in pain. Warily, she glanced around the clearing, looking to see if there were any other bears; she was no expert on bears, but she knew that you should look for a mother bear when a young bear was around. Was this a young bear? How was one supposed to tell?

But there was no roaring, or any other noises to indicate another bear was about. She let out a deep breath and was just starting to move towards the bear when a sharp call from Shambles, "Something's coming!" made her jump back from the bear and look around wildly. Something was coming, she could hear the crunching and breaking of branches as something large made its way towards them. Was is a mother bear? What was the best way to get away from a mother bear? She was tensing up, ready to call for Shambles to jump down and they'd run for it...

..When the 'bear' was suddenly there, staring down at the wounded bear. Bearlet? Cub? Whatever it was. Either way, it was no additional bear, but a Soquili stallion. Relief washed over her, and she let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding in a bout of merry laughter. It was entirely possible that the stallion was a dangerous sort himself, but the fact he wasn't an angry bear was enough for now. Laughing, she beamed at the fellow and burst out, "I am so pleased you aren't an angry bear!"

To say that the stallion's body language was strange was putting it mildly, and it gave Robbie pause. A closer scrutiny of both stallion and bear followed, which left Robbie baffled and intrigued in equal measure.

Sure, she had seen her fair share of what could be called 'unusual' Soquili in the slopes. Some of the border guards in particular were unique, with hulking bodies, massive wings, horns, jaws filled with rows of sharp, nasty teeth. Her own family was predominately regular Soquili and winds, but her father's phoenix traits seemed confined to her own family; she'd never seen anyone other than a relative with antenna feathers or the striking phoenix tails she and several of her siblings sported. So all things considered, she considered herself an open-minded Soquili, not one to be put off by something as inconsequential as physical appearance.

However, she'd never seen a Soquili quite like this. She'd noticed the horn and the back armor at first, but closer observation drew to her attention the small cloven hooves, more like a deer than the cloven hooves of the unicorn's she'd met. His mane hung down over his eyes, so she hadn't really seen much of his face. However, when he straightened up and 'spoke' to the bear, she realized for the first time that there was something...unusual about his mouth. It wasn't polite to stare, of course, so she tried not to look at the area, but it was almost as if it was...grown together? That must making talking quite the challenge, to say nothing of eating!

Poor fellow.

However, one sentiment was conspicuously absent in Robbie as she finished her mental assessment of the stallion: Fear. It simply wasn't in her nature to be afraid of another Soquili without reason, and a unique appearance was hardly a suitable reason. His bear seemed friendly, after all, and the stallion himself was not behaving in a threatening manner. She wasn't great on body language, but she could interpret a bow as well as anyone else!

So she smiled at both bear and stallion, chuckling a bit at the outrageous compliment. Having a bear as a conversational middleman was a bit new, but wasn't life meant for new experiences? "Well, it's nice to meet you as well, Vidoun and Mouthpiece," Robbie said with a sly grin. "And thank you for the compliment, whichever one of you came up with it. I'm Robelia, but everyone calls me Robbie, and this," she added with a nod of her head towards the chicken in the tree, "is Shambles. He wishes he could speak for me, but his loss is my gain."

"Charmed," said Shambles drily. For his part, he didn't know what to make of the unlikely pair of stallion and bear, and he wasn't going to come out of his tree until he was a bit more comfortable with the situation.

Dismissing Shambles' brevity as par for the course, Robbie glanced from Vidoun to Chain with obvious curiousity. Her earlier alarm over, she inquired of Chain, "You're not hurt, then? You or you, Vidoun? Because that was quite the performance earlier, you had both Shambles and I feeling alarmed."

Shambles didn't quite know what to make of this situation, so he had been content to stay up in the tree and observe. Sure, he would have leapt right in if Robbie appeared to be in actual danger, but right now the situation was just odd. Odd, and involved a bear. THAT made him uncomfortable, even if the bear was a familiar. After all, bears would eat chickens without even thinking of it! So when Chain came climbing up and perched right next to him, Shambles found his discomfort level level climbing and gave Chain a solemn look and a shrug. He wasn't about to get into any profound conversation with a bear he still wasn't sure about!

For her part, Robbie wasn't phased. She was a lot bigger than Chain, and she was used to more weirdness than Shambles. After all, she and Shambles were together because she'd recused him from a fox; he was entitled to a bit of anxiety on that score, but that didn't mean Robbie shared it.

Besides, she wasn't really paying attention to Shambles right now anyway. Without Chain translating, she had to make sense of Vidoun on her own, and that took a bit of attention! Grinning, she returned the head bob. "I guess I'll take that silence as a 'no, you're not hurt. Good to see that you only have an overly dramatic familiar and not an injured one!"

Now there was a comment Shambles couldn't take lying down. Ruffling his feathers in his agitated way, he huffed a bit at the overly enthusiastic bear. "I'm not being sour, I'm being prudent. And I will NOT be happy if you try to eat me, just so you know. Neither with Miss Robbie; she's come to enjoy having me around, and we both know what bears can be like." He shuffled a little ways down the branch, putting more distance between himself and the bear while she was distracted by the Soquili. "Perhaps you're a very lovely bear, but you're still a bear, so please excuse me if I'm not comfortable with this arrangement so soon after meeting you." That was fair enough, right?

It was true that Robbie would miss Shambles if something happened to him, but at the moment she wasn't in the least concerned about him. The bear had been pleasant enough; while she knew that creatures with devious intentions were capable of acting nice to hide their true intentions, she simply didn't feel that either the very social Chain or the very silent Viduon were up to no good. She wouldn't do anything stupid, mind you; she still wanted to be a border guard one day, and being a border guard meant behaving with prudence in all circumstances. However, it also meant relying on her judgement and her instincts, and both of those things were telling her that for now, both she and Shambles had nothing to worry about.

Of course, that could be her curiousity getting the better of her, but she was going to go with 'it's all safe' all the same!

Vidoun was unusual, there was no getting around that; however, in his own way, he was being very courteous and mannerly. He was keeping his distance, which was appropriate when meeting a stranger for the same time; he was giving every appearance of listening to everything she said, and even offering an 'answer', albeit one composed of equal parts murmur and gesture. Languages had never been a strong suit of hers, but that didn't mean she wasn't willing to work on that! "Good, good. Shambles and I are also well; any outbursts you may have heard earlier were purely due to frustration, not due to any injury or problem. I realize there is an irony in making noise as a result of making noise, but apparently I'm turning into an ironic mare."

Shambles wasn’t quite ready to trust the bear, but at her vehement assurances he decided to at least give her the benefit of the doubt. Consequently, he stopped edging away and settled himself down more comfortably on the branch. At least the bear had good instincts; it was commendable that she wouldn’t eat a familiar, even if she did admit to being a carnivore. Or an omnivore, he supposed; fish were barely animals in his mind, but they were animal enough.

Either way, he gave Chain a slight nod of acceptance and then returned his attention to their Soquili companions. He and Robbie were relatively new together; it had only been about a month since she had rescued him from the fox determined to make a meal of him. But in that month, he had become quite fond of her, and protective as well. The bear might be ok for now, but he wasn’t sure what he thought of the stallion. He was just so…odd. He’d have to keep an eye on that one.

For her part, Robbie was pleased when the chatter from the tree ended. Shambles was a sweet fellow, but he could be a bit over cautious sometimes. That was part of why she liked him so much; she was a practical mare, but she was good at flying off half-cocked when she was struck by an impulse. Having Shambles around kept her grounded, and she appreciated that. Plus, he was a native of this region, which she was not; any aid of that sort was an advantage while she bumbled around looking for Fenghuang!

But at the moment, she was in a very novel situation, and she wanted to enjoy it for as long as she could. Having Shambles verbally pecking at Chain was a bit distracting, to put it mildly.

She laughed as Vidoun’s hoof came down on the branch, the sharp cracking noise an easy mimic of her previous mishap. “Yep, that’s what I did earlier, and since I was practicing moving in a sneaky fashion, having a branch branch with the volume of a coyote’s howl was counterproductive. Stealth is not easy for me to begin with unless I’ve rolled around in the mud.” She paused, pursing her lips and shaking her head. Mud was not a favorite of hers, seeing how long it took her to clean it out of her mane, but if she wanted to be a border guard she couldn’t afford to be picky about something like looks. Honestly, she probably ought to just find someone to cut it short for her…

Later. Much later. There would be time for that when she was more prepared; she wasn't afraid or ashamed to admit that when it came to her hair she could be a bit vain. In the meantime…”Are you good at sneaker, Vidoun? Perhaps you can give me some tips, if so!”

Yay, Shambles had finally stopped his grousing. Robbie didn't look up to see what the cause of that silence meant, simply taking it instead as something to be enjoyed. She knew that whatever he was doing, Shambles could handle himself; she just liked him to handle himself in a way that wasn't too fussy. Chain seemed like she was a nice enough bear, and Robbie felt she could be trusted not to eat her familiar while her attentions were engaged elsewhere.

And really, they needed to be elsewhere! Robbie was grateful that Chain had been there to make the initial introductions, but Robbie was determined to sort out communication with Vidoun directly. It couldn't be his fault that he had that unusual mouth arrangement, and speaking for herself, she had to imagine that it was frustrating not to be able to articulate one's own thoughts directly.Her own words could often flow a mile a minute, so if she was dependent on Shambles to speak for her...

Well, she'd probably be a lot more censored, she had to admit with a rueful smile. Maybe that would be good, sometimes. But not always, and she loved being able to speak her mind. So, even if Vidoun was not capable of literally speaking for himself, he obviously had his own way of communicating and she could respect that. Chain could interpret his behaviors, and she had confidence that she could manage as well!

Though the problem with non-verbal communication, particularly between Soquili who didn't know each other very well, was there was a lot of room for error. And when Vidoun responded to her explanation of the 'sneaky' problem with what seemed to be laughter, her hackles promptly started to raise. She was a good-natured mare, yes, but she took her goals and ambitions very seriously. No one, mare, stallion, bear, mongoose, was going to make light of her dreams, and the surest way to earn her ire was to belittle them. She was about to tell Vidoun that in no uncertain terms when the chuckling was followed up by further activity; head nodding, gesturing, looking down, looking off in the distance...

Obviously there was more to the story than she had originally interpreted, and her hackles went back down. However, she had to color herself thoroughly confused. What had all that pointing and gesturing meant, exactly? Her mouth twisted to the side slightly, and she cocked her head at Vidoun for a long silent moment before sighing. "I'm sorry, I really didn't get that at all, Vidoun. Would you mind starting over with that thought? I'm not sure if you were trying to say I'm an idiot, or that you're completely unstealthy, or that there's something or someone over there that CAN be stealthy, or that we ought to go over there and I'll become stealthy..."

She broke off, shaking her head once more and giving him an apologetic look. "As you might have guessed, I'm overly fond of verbal communication. But if you just bear with me for a while, I'm sure I'll get this non-verbal thing sorted out!"