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Nyhali quietly opened the door to the room she'd loaned Laura to see if the woman was awake or not. She'd just come back from asking the resident vet how Leolin and Kedri were doing. It seemed they were both going to be fine given a little recuperating time, and she wanted to let Laura know herself.

Nyhali was glad the Heideshi family dealt with and owned enough griffons to keep someone on staff who could care for the birds as well as the horses. If there had been serious injuries, they would had to have taken them to a larger facility. At least this way there wasn't going to be any extra cost for having them taken care of.

Actually... Nyhali was probably lucky she hadn't come off the worse for wear given what had happened. "Laura? Can I come in?"

~~~~~

Kedri was more comfortable than she had been, but not as comfortable as she'd like. At least Nyhali had come in to see her and given her some breakfast. Normally Kedri didn't get venison unless she caught it herself, but apparently her human had thought she needed some spoiling today (which she felt she was entitled to!). Kedri only ate half of it though, and tossed the rest into the next stall for Leolin to eat. Silly thing hadn't waken up yet, but she wasn't sure how long it would be before Laura came in to feed him. He deserved a spoiling, too, though, for all he'd probably almost gotten himself killed for trying to be brave.

"Fine. I just thought I'd let you know that the griffons will be ok. They just can't do anything strenuous, like carry anything too heavy, for a few days." Nyhali grinned. "So, would you like some breakfast? Mirri's cooking something that smells wonderful downstairs."

~~~~~

"I think I sprained something." She put one of her foreclaws down and made a grunting noise. "Several somethings." She stretched her wings. They were sore, but they seemed uninjured, somehow. She peered forlornly back at her hindquarters. "Even my tail got sprained..."

She turned a sharp eye on him. "Next time I tell you not to go running off on your own, listen, won't you? If that thing had gotten through you, what makes you think it wouldn't have come after us?" She fluffed up to a point where she looked rather silly. "You're my only friend here so far, what am I supposed to do if something happens to you?" The thought set her to pacing around in a distressed manner, hobbling slightly as she attempted to keep her sprained foreclaw off the ground.

Nyhali smiled softly. "No younger siblings. I do have some old clothes though that would probably fit... I brought them with me when I moved here, I didn't really know what else to do with them. I'm sure there's some sensible workclothes in there, or something, if you'd rather not put another dress back on." She motioned at the clothing she was wearing, which was actually a long shirt with short sleeves and a pair of pants. She grinned slightly and shrugged. "I was born in the working class, I avoid fancy things like what I had on last night if at all possible."

She stepped out of the room for a minute and came back with a robe. "Here, put this on, you can at least walk down the hall to my room in that so you can try something on."

~~~~~

Kedri sighed exasperatedly and stepped over to carefully preen behind Leolin's ear for a moment. "You're as stubborn as Nyhali, I swear..." She accepted the meat and swallowed it. "I wish you two would have been sensible enough to get out of harm's way!" Not really knowing what else to do with herself she snipped Leolin off a piece of meat and held it out to him.

Nyhali put a hand on Laura's shoulder and looked her directly in the eye. "I was the daughter of the Heideshi's steward, and I got adopted into the family for various reasons, so maybe I was never "just a peasant", but I know what it's like on both sides of the nobility barrier. Wealth doesn't make them any better than anyone else. More powerful maybe, but not better. In my house, I'll not have you treated any the worse for where you came from, either. I want you to remember that, ok? ...Lucas?" She stuck her tongue out at Laura and turned toward the door again. "I hope you're not too uncomfortable about the idea, but that's just the way I am."

She led the way down the hall and into her room, which was somewhere between "commoner" and "noble" in decor. Just like the woman that slept there. She rummaged in the walk-in closet for a few moments before dragging out an old trunk and popped it open. "Anything in there that fits, you can have. I'd rather see someone using it, it's not doing much good sitting in there." She stepped back. "And most of it's from before I got inducted into the family, so you can get away with wearing it without anyone asking too many questions, since you work for a nobleman. Some of it you can probably use when you race too."

She trotted toward the door before Laura could make too many objections about it. "I'll be downstairs in the kitchen, just follow your nose. I've been up too long not to be hungry. Come find me when you're finished, I'll take you out to see the griffons and you can feed your pretty boy."

~~~~~

Kedri's nares reddened slightly too. She'd heard sweet words before, of a certainty, but such sincerity... Leolin was a simple soul, he wouldn't say something like that if he didn't mean it.

She sat carefully and watched him for a moment, head atilt. "I... think that's the nicest thing a male has ever said to me and actually meant." She really... didn't know what to say. "Thank you." It didn't seem right to just flirt at him at the moment. Actually she wasn't sure she could do it very well at the moment anyway, she was too flustered.

She nudged the meat closer to Leolin. "Go ahead and eat... You'll heal faster for it. I already had some, anyway, I saved this part for you." She felt like an adolescent again for the first time since... well... adolescence. She fluffed up again slightly and preened at a wing to try and recover herself.

The smell of food floated distinctly out of one of the side hallways, and Nyhali's voice soon followed as one walked down the hall toward the source of the smell.

"Oh, come on, Mirri, you've known me since I was seven! Don't start expecting me to act like one of those nitwit court ladies! You'd be surprised how many of them were trained to fight, actually... I could tell. I can deal with acting like some of them, but you know as well as anyone that just because I look delicate doesn't mean I'm going to allow myself to be forced to act like some china doll..." She looked up when Laura came around the corner into the kitchen. "Ah... Well, that looks nice on you. Don't mind me, we were discussing proper etiquette... well, Mirri was discussing and I was rebelling. I do that a lot. You sure you don't want a bite to eat before we go out?" She nudged a tray a bit farther down the table toward her guest. "Fresh biscuits!"

She tapped her chin with a finger for a moment. "I was going to ask, Laura, and this is purely invitation, you are by no means obligated... Would you like to keep Leolin here for the time being? Until he's free to continue his training and such, I mean. The vet's here, and Kedri's here, and you can borrow one of the horses or something if you want..."

And maybe Nyhali was fishing around a bit for a friend. The serving staff here were one thing, but even the ones that knew her before she was made into a "noble" had been treating her differently. Kedri seemed to have been taking to Leolin, so why shouldn't she try to befriend his owner?

~~~~~

Kedri sat very still while Leolin cleaned around her beak. She couldn't really say anything or move around too much while he was doing it... so... she just sat there until he was done. She tilted her head at him, looking slightly perplexed, but not displeased. He was making her feel all sorts of funny in ways she wasn't sure if she liked or not. Why was he so sweet? ...Maybe honest was a better word. He'd had to prove himself his entire life, he hadn't been handed the rank of "better" and been taught conciet the way a lot of griffons she'd met had been. And he was a "better" griffon than a lot of them had been, in body and spirit. Even if he wasn't as flashy.

"Are you going to eat or do I need to feed you?" She intentionally fluffed up to make herself look silly and chirped playfully at him. Maybe he'd laugh? It was odd trying to figure out how to act around someone who wasn't Nyhali or just another male... it hadn't really occured to her before, but she hadn't really had any griffons around that were just friends. Her own brothers had been away most of the time with the Heideshi sons, and she hadn't really seen much of her parents after the attack because the Lady Heideshi had taken them with her when she went to live in the country after her husband died and the sons took over the care of the lands.

All sorts of funny, and she really couldn't decide if she liked it or not.

Beyond the fact of the vet, Nyhali's place had been a little closer than where Rem was staying to the place the party-gone-wrong had been. Nyhali got the feeling Laura wouldn't have been comfortable leaving Leolin here if she hadn't been able to stay, and Laura's surprised and then hesitant reaction to her question made her feel bad about it.

"...He'll probably feel better being closer to you. If he is with you anything like Kedri is with me. You seem to be the only person human or otherwise he counts as family... am I right?" She clapped her hands once, having decided. "I'll have a cart made up later that he can ride in if he can't walk comfortably back to where you're staying. Kedri can walk, though she's favoring one of her forelegs, but that's never stopped her before. If it's all right I suppose I'll just bring her over to visit, or you can bring him to visit after he's better. After all, it's not like you need a special reason to make a social call, right?"

She waited until Laura was done and stood up. "We'll go out the back here... Does Leolin like mutton? I'm sure Kedri's insisted on sharing the venison I gave her earlier, so I got two portions of this."

~~~~~

Kedri clicked her beak amusedly. "All right, we'll compromise. We can chat, and you take a bite every once in a while." She turned and shifted around in the straw inside her stall, laying down carefully and shifting so she wouldn't put too much weight on her injured leg. "So, what do you generally do all day?" Might as well get to know more about him if they were going to be friends.

Nyhali looked at Laura for a moment and then started laughing. She didn't really mean to, it just sort of happened, and it took her a minute to stop. "Oh, oh, no offense, really, I think I'm still a little out of sorts. Ah..." She tilted her head slightly and looked at Laura a little sideways. "I wasn't going to ask for anything in return. But, if you really feel the need... be my friend? ...I don't exactly have any..." She seemed to deflate a little. "I don't know if I started acting strangely since the adoption... but most everyone's acted differently to me. 'Cept my brothers, but they're rarely in Xuan." She sounded a little lost, in fact. "I latched on to you at the party because at least I recognized you. I feel silly saying all this but... I talk so much trying to keep your attention, I feel alone in this city, and most of the people I'm expected to talk to make me feel like I'm a skunk dressed up to be a lady's lap-dog." She grimaced. "It's hard to make friends when you feel like you're walking on dagger points."

She grabbed one haunch of lamb and handed Laura the other. "Kedri seems to like Leolin, too, so..." She shrugged. "And actually, I don't normally feed Kedri anything more expensive than pork. I take her out hunting once in a while to make up for it... I got the venison and the mutton because I felt like they deserved it after last night."

~~~~~

Kedri listened intently. That... actually peaked her curiosity quite a bit. She'd been told she had a fair build to be a runner, but since the most action there had been around her old home was usually sport-races between visiting nobles or to show off the breeding stock, neither she nor her human had taken much interest. She didn't know whether she really had the build to beat Leolin, she was more mid-range between power and speed, though she leaned toward the speed far more heavily.

"...Do you think I could join you? Training?" She crept forward and straightened an errant feather on his shoulder with her beak. "I daresay I'd have some catching up to do to even do training runs with you, but it would certainly be better than following Nyhali around while she wanders aimlessly around the city or putters about here. Give us both something to do, and I can spend time with my new friend!" See? That sounded like a very good idea to her. She finished preening at her wing, quite pleased with herself.

Nyhali grinned. "Not at all. Besides... what else am I supposed to do with the money? Horde it? Maybe if I were a dragon and actually found it comfortable to sleep on..."

She stepped into the stable and let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light before laughing out loud at seeing the griffons tucked away together over the rest of the venison. "Seems they decided not to wait for us."

She gave Kedri a good scritching on the back of her neck and set the leg of lamb down in front of her friend.

Kedri leaned into Nyhali's hand. Ooooh it felt so good when she scratched that spot! She blinked her eyes back open when she stopped and spotted the new meat in front of her. She was still somewhat hungry... she supposed Nyhali had planned for her giving half of her breakfast away.

"Nyhali goes out flying with me fairly regularly, and out to hunt once in a while. Just not for hours every day. Perhaps I should start out with something light to see how well I do first?" She daintily tore a bit of meat off the leg, fur still intact. It tickled on the way down, but the fur helped to sort of brush things out if they got stuck in her insides. She didn't actually think about that fact; it was one of those instinct things she just did.