"You look lost."
The air was calm and still. The warm temperature was ambient and nearly nonexistent. If one stood still enough and closed their eyes, they could nearly imagine that they were floating in the ether, in some sort of comfortable void.
As it were, though, they were not. The sun was bright and directly above. If you listened closely enough you could hear the sounds of some distant creatures living their lives. As the distance between the peryton and the long-limbed wolf closed, Harmaelinn squinted. She hadn't seen this wolf in these parts, before. Not that she knew every single face that passed through here, but… Well, at her level of day-to-day monotone, seeing a new face was a bit jarring.
At the peryton's words, Hausos blinked. His head raised from where it had been lowered to examine the crystals that rest there. "I… uhm…" The wolf's brow furrowed as he looked to the creature approaching him. The glanced over his shoulder, as if there could be someone else there that she could have possibly been speaking to.
Finding no one, he turned back. "What… What makes you say?"
Harmaelinn smiled to him. It was a gentle, soothing expression. Her wings unfurled from where they rested against her back and shifted a bit. The tip of one pointed towards the crystals at the wolf's feet. "Those that spend a lot of time here don't usually look so fascinated with these."
"…Oh…" The wolf looked down towards the flowers, blinking at them a few puzzled times before looking back up towards the twilight blue peryton. "Well then, yes, I'm new around here. But what makes you think I'm lost?"
She hummed to herself thoughtfully. It was a melodic hum, like the singing of a bird. She looked him over a few times. His fur was the color of the sky at dawn. Harm reflected on the colors. They were like the first things she saw each morning when she woke from her strange and vague dreams. "Just a hunch, I suppose. You haven't said no, though."
There was a pause then, and Hausos sighed. He looked back towards the Onyx Ridge, then back towards his company. "I… well. I wouldn't say I'm lost. You have to have some sort of direction in the first place to lose it, don't you? I just… haven't been here before, is all."
"Never been here?" Harm repeated. Her wings shifted to rest once more against her back and she raised a brow. "To the Crystal Forest? That's hard to believe, though I suppose stranger things have happened…" The peryton sat, proper and still, and watched him. "What brings you here, then?"
Hausos furrowed his brow again. Interesting, since it didn't seem to be that complicated of a question. Harmaelinn watched him chew on his words, meanwhile looking over his fur. Now that she was closer, she could see that it seemed to blow and flutter. She looked around to make sure that the breeze hadn't picked up. The wind was still. The wolf's fur seemed to sway all on its own. She'd heard of the different types of abilities different wolves had—some that glowed, some that melted into darkness—but she hadn't met one like this before.
Finally, he answered.
"It's… Well. Complicated, I suppose. My mother…. She wouldn't want me here." He paused, adding in a "Wouldn't want me anywhere, really," under his breath that she could barely discern. Then, looking back towards her, he continued. "I live with my mother in the Ridge. Well. Used to, anyway. She… well. She provided for me well. We had a home, and food. It was comfortable and beautiful…" His voice trailed off and Harm noticed a look of distress in his eyes.
"Did something happen to her?" she pressed gently, her head giving the slightest tilt to one side.
"No," he answered. "Well. Yes and no. She's fine. For the most part. Still up the ridge, I imagine…" He glanced back in the direction of the Onyx Ridge, then looked back towards the peryton. "The way my mother talked about our home—she said it was beautiful and full of life, as if the soul of the world was there. She made it sound like the rest of the world was different. I almost…" he wrinkled his nose. "I almost thought that it would be dead everywhere else. It's just… It's just not what I expected."
Harm's puzzled expression quirked into a subtle smile. "It's certainly not a world of death and despair, if that's what you're getting at." Her head tilted to the other side now, a look of curiosity. "Pardon my asking, but you're not as… ah… young as others who look at the world through new eyes and are surprised to find it as it is."
His ears flattened against the side of his head. "I guess I'm not that young, no." Hausos gave a wry smile. His long fur continued to ripple around in the nonexistent breeze. "I guess you could say that I've had a… a falling out, of sorts. And I'm…" he took a breath, as if he next words he was going to say needed an extra push. "on my own. For once." He looked back towards the gently glowing crystals at his feet, taking a few moments of silence to digest the words that he'd spoken. He really settled on the implications of what he had said. The reality of his situation.
Harmaelinn's expression became sympathetic and she tilted her head downwards, entering his field of vision. "For what it counts," she said after a moment to respect his thoughtful silence, "I can't believe that anyone is ever really alone. There's a whole world out there, after all."
The wolf kept his eyes on the glowing stones as he quietly considered her words. 'There's a whole world out there, after all.' Hausos looked back towards the peryton, his smile still wry and lopsided. "Suppose so, yeah." He took a deep breath to refresh himself, held it in his lungs for a few moments, then exhaled in a big puff. He closed his eyes and let the exhale settle his bones, then looked back to her. "Thanks. I'm… uh. I'm Hausos, by the way," he said, feeling a flush of embarrassment at the realization that he'd been spilling his life angst to someone whose name he didn't even know.
"Hausos. I'm Harmaelinn," the peryton replied, her voice like a light and gentle bell. She stood, once more unfurling her wings from her back "Come. Let me show you around."
(WC: 1103)
