Welcome to Gaia! ::

This was not the average stable. Even a blind man would have been able to tell that. Although the majority of the sounds to escape the stable were indeed the neighs and whickers of horses, there was the occasional shriek or trill of a gryphon, proving that there were both types within the stalls. That was a bit of a surprise to Remiel; he had never actually seen a gryphon close up since they rarely survived in his home country due to the cold, but, for some reason, he had always heard that gryphons and horses hated each other. Like cats and dogs. That was a silly saying, really. When he was a child, he had a dog and a cat who got along quite well, sleeping together in an adorable pile of fluff and purr. Fur. Yes. Fur.

As soon as Remiel entered the stable, he noticed another thing that would have clearly identified the occupants, even to a blind man: the smell. Most of the smell was the deep musky scent normally associated with horses---and, yes, their waste products---but beyond that there was a slightly lighter odor along with the sickly tang of raw meat. Apparently, he had arrived just in time for feeding time. How… quaint. The sounds from the various occupants of the stalls multiplied as the blonde stranger came into their stable. A few of the creatures turned around, just enough to regard the man who had entered their domain.

Remiel was a noble and he certainly looked the part! Although he was not the tallest individual around---standing at about five feet and six inches---he made up for it in other ways. He liked to think that it was just his personality. Some others would point out that his personality included mild delusions such as managing to ignore his own attractiveness. Or, at least, seem to ignore it. In fact, Remiel looked after his appearance carefully, although he would never admit it as it seemed vain. In most cases, he didn’t care for the clothes of nobility, preferring clothing that was elegant in its simplicity. Today’s garb was no exception. Still, something about him marked him as ‘noble’.

For the time being, he was more interested in getting a horse than a gryphon. He knew how to look after a horse. Gryphons were like closed books to him, with extra feathers and talons. Still curious, he sidled a little bit closer to the stall that apparently contained one of these mysterious creatures.

Rem looked up from the gryphon as soon as another person entered the stable. For some reason, he hadn’t really considered that possibility. It made sense though. Where you got horses---and gryphons, apparently---you got people to look after them. He looked over the… girl, he decided eventually, and decided that she was probably employed as a stableboy. Stablegirl. Whatever. It was rather surprising when the gryphon came to her call; up to this moment, Rem had more or less assumed that gryphons were sort of reserved as pets for nobility or those with a lot of money. Stablegirls did not have a lot of money.

Ah well, it really wasn’t any of his business… normally, this didn’t stop him from poking his nose into things, but this time it did since he was more interested in the horses anyway. They tended to make more sense than people did. Moving onto one of the other stalls, he extended a hand to the horse who whuffled into his hand. Rem, oddly enough, got along well with most animals, including horses. Hopefully, it would extend to gryphons as well.

Although, that particular one had been set on mostly ignoring him… from what he had heard, that was just a gryphon’s way. If you weren’t part of their flock, they were content to ignore you unless you were a threat to the aforementioned flock. Very loyal animals.

As a matter of fact, someone did indeed see the gryphon acting that way. Remiel saw, as he was watching the pair from the corner of his eye, mostly focusing on the gryphon. Hey, he figured he had a perfectly decent reason to watch them; after all, he was looking into getting a gryphon for himself, so it made perfect sense to see how they usually interacted with their owner. Or guardian. Whatever the proper term was. He didn’t really mind seeing the behavior though. He was a bit more… relaxed about things like that than some nobles.

He started to reply to her question. “No, not really, I’m just loo..!” he was cut off by her falling against him. Having been raised to be a gentleman---and, yes, a soldier---he automatically caught her, his arms supporting hers.

…

Well, this was awkward. Not just for her, but for himself as well, since he wasn’t exactly used to young women falling in his arms. Normally, they tried tripping over something first and tearing their dress, which confused Rem to no end.

“Are you alright?” he asked automatically. His own eyes were hazel. At least, that was the closest word that could describe the color. They were almost the opposite of Laura’s, with brown around the pupil and green dancing along the edges. Once he decided that she was steady enough on her own feet, he let go.

Or maybe she was just the sort of man who got terribly embarrassed about falling against another man’s chest. Hm. Actually, that was pretty common. People tended to get embarrassed about falling against anyone’s chest. “Umm… there’s really no trouble at all, really…” he tried to avoid looking at her, since he was just as embarrassed as she was in some ways. How did one act towards a girl who was clearly trying to pretend to be male?

He knew how at least one man did, but that man was not Rem. “My name’s Remiel. If you must use a title, then Lieutenant will do,” he added. While he was proud of his heritage, people calling him ‘Lord’ and such things got on his nerves. Maybe it was simply because he was born with that title, while he had earned Lieutenant. That would explain why he was more comfortable with it.

After an extended painful silence, he made a quiet suggestion. “If you’re going to try to pass yourself off as male, you should… umm… well, take a pair of socks, roll them up, and put them down your pants. It sounds silly, but it works.” Yep. Elite military training, that was. “Personally, I don’t really care what you do so long as you do it well, but… there are those that do care. You probably know about that already though."

Shifting the topic rapidly from anything to do with socks, pants, females, or people falling into each other, he waved a hand vaguely at Leolin. “So that’s your griffin then? I’ve never seen one up close before.”

Rem simply shrugged, apparently not at all bothered by her temper. Fine. If she didn’t want his advice, she didn’t have to follow it. He was mildly annoyed by her lack of manners---he didn’t think of manners as something that only nobles should have, after all---and would make a point of doing so.

“You see, that’s what they call ‘advice’. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before. If you don’t want to follow it, you don’t even have to say so. You just have to say ‘thank you’ and then not follow it. Now, repeat after me: thaaaank yoooou.” He sounded out the words very carefully, much like one would do for a very young child. In his opinion, that was what she was acting like. It wasn’t even as if he had been talking that loudly at all. He considered pointing out the obvious---that she ought to be more polite to someone who knew her secret and could indeed get her fired---but he decided that sounded too much like a threat.

So much for trying to learn more about gryphons… he turned on his heels and prepared to leave, perfectly fine with leaving a place where he clearly wasn’t welcome.

Rem blushed a little. Well, as a matter of fact, he had felt a little… he couldn’t help it! She had, after all, fallen against him. It wasn’t as if he could have let her fall!

“I don’t make a habit of feeling up young women who happen to fall against me. Or young men, for that matter,” he added, deciding that it was best to be safe and say that now. One could never tell with some people, after all. “If you must know, I only know because one of my… hm. ‘Acquaintance’ would be the best term for him, I suppose. Anyway, he made a habit of spotting women in the ranks and helping them out.” No need to point out that this ‘acquaintance’ hadn’t been in the same army. It didn’t really matter.

“I don’t plan on telling anyone either. It’s your life and your business, not mine.” He didn’t approve of lying, especially about something like sex, but, really, it wasn’t any of his business. Hopefully, ‘Lucas’ wouldn’t get caught since very scary things happened to women who were caught cross-dressing.

He eyed the gryphon a little distrustfully, not sure what to think about the idea of flying on something like that. “I don’t think he cares for the idea of that… but, I would like to hear about him anyway.” That was what he had been trying to talk about before Laura threw her little hissy fit.

Rem, for one, had no problem with talking and working at the same time. Unlike some nobles, he had an idea of what it was like to actually… you know… do that working thing in order to keep himself fed and alive. He imagined that it would be even harder for Laura, since she had to take care of Leolin as well. “I wouldn’t know if he’s too scrawny or not. As I said, I’ve never seen one this close before.”

While he was a bit worried about his fingers, Rem had enough confidence in his own reflexes and gingerly extended a hand out to the gryphon, offering it for a smell. Most animals, he knew, preferred to smell a hand before letting it pet them at all. He considered offering her the money to race, but decided it would be a bad idea. Some people were awfully touchy about things like money-troubles. Besides, they had just met! There were few things freakier than a stranger---especially one that you recently suspected of feeling you up---offering you free money.

It was a sad state of affairs when genuine generosity was greeted with suspicion.

“How did you get him?”

Remiel smiled at the curious gryphon, chuckling a little as Leolin gently bit his hand. Birds often did that, for some reason. They always liked to test things out on their tongue before having anything to do with whatever it was they were testing. Satisfied that the gryphon knew he tasted awful---or, at least, the soap that Rem used tasted awful---the noble scratched the gryphon’s feathers lightly. Leaning over, he looked over Leolin’s legs a little. They didn’t look any different from any other gryphon he’d seen. That is, they didn’t appear as if they had been broken at all. Still, what did he know?

“You’d have an advantage in a race,” he commented. As a general rule, girls were lighter than boys, even those of similar size. The male sex simply tended to have more muscle which was heavier. Fact of life. Rem didn’t say this out loud, naturally, since there was no way to tell who was listening.

“How long have you been working here?” Those were Rem’s next spoken words, but what he actually meant was, ‘how long have you been passing off as a boy?’ Yes, he knew, the question was probably considered to be highly personal. Still, if she felt that way, she would just have to say so. And if she wanted to know about him, he would be happy to answer her questions right back. Well, most anyway.