She came up to him with familiarity and confidence, even in the burning curiosity of his amber gazers. The air almost seemed to tremor with the quiet acknowledgment of blood that flared her nostrils, but it stilled almost instantaneously, leaving the listener to question whether it had happened at all. The constant movement of her eyes was something Ala Noche was no stranger to; he allowed her to rove the facets of his being, analyzing her in turn with unabashed scrutiny. The shimmering pale gray pelt, melding smoothly with a darker shade where it met the curve of her lean muscle, the eyes that almost seemed reflective when they looked at him, painted an elusive shade of brown that escaped him with each small movement of her head. Even –no, especially – the way she sat near to him, like they had once meant something to each other, the volumes of this action driving his mind into overdrive of such intensity that for a moment her words were lost in his appreciation.

“Hello there, stranger. Name’s Miya; what’s yours?”

Captivated by her lyrics, he opened his mouth to answer the fatale. They were guided by music that only her body knew the notes to play, striking each syllable with a friendly, rich tone that one could feel sinking slowly through the subconscious, letting it warm every pore of the body.

Or maybe that was just the sun, striking through the trees to liven the medley of washed-out shades the shadows had wrought. Whatever the reason, he welcomed the burst with a grin, swinging his head towards Miya and rising to a sitting position, sporting an almost sheepish cast as he kicked the bones away in a way that tried so hard not to be obvious, but failed just as badly.

“Why, hello yourself, sister. It’s Ala Noche, but the name’s a mouthful. You can call me Ala or Noche.”

His own tones, like bells of brass ringing early in the morning, were deep and thoughtful, with a baritone that defied his young age. Even generating the merest noise, the sound resonated throughout the afternoon air as the vibrations of a bell would, spreading out over the clearing with the soothing quality of honey. Shooting an earnest look in Miya’s direction, he slowly licked the remnants of his snack away before adding:

“Parents can be so intricate. With a name like Ala Noche, would you have expected them to be a certain Sigh and Leirko? Imagination has limits, or so I told them. But the name stuck.”

Saying their names: Sigh and Leirko, felt odd on his tongue. Not foreign, so much as…distant, like they had been banished for so long that to return made them unwelcome. Hesitancy dawned on him then, and Noche was quiet waiting for her reply, cloaking his indecision and hatred behind the gleaming mask of friendly pearls and warm eyes. His past sometimes made him feel like a caged animal, the animal that he had been wrapped up in chains and led to the battlefield, the animal that had watched his father laugh to see wolves felled, and the animal whose mother caressed him afterwards, but had eyes only for the winnings. And when he was older, no contact at all. A desperate need to flex his muscles rose in his gut, to prove to himself that the heavy burden of obedience had really ended one he’d left. But he stilled the impulse, because Noche knew it wouldn’t feel like he wanted it to. It was as his mother had said, in the flickering light of a blessed forest fire: “Family you can escape, but words you cannot.”