Waiting felt like an eternity. How long had it been since she had heard a breath? Seen eyes? Felt the warmth of the sun as it peeked back at through the clouds and trees? Too long, too long and so, she waited with bated breath for the woman's response. Eager, she felt, to hear something other than the laughing and cackling of the shadows and night. She desired it so much so that when the first syllable of Liquid Amber's voice passed her lips, Eto could not help but sigh in relief. She felt herself sink into her own paws, a weight removed from her shoulders now that she knew - the outside world had welcomed her. She had not been called forth only to find silence. She knew not the words to express such gratitude. All she could hope for was that the grin that broke her gums showed it; that the wave in her tail would purvey it.
But at the first, the woman's words confused her. She frowned as she crawled forward another pace or two, the strawberry blonde that laced her face and neck now illuminated. Still, she had become willing to reveal herself just a little more. The caves had become, in a way, a shell for her in which she could hide forever if she so desired. It was simply that she desired something more now.
"Gypsies..." she tested the word, mirroring the way that Liquid Amber had said it with a flick of her tongue, "strange word...but...it means a good thing." Well, she thought so at least. Sometimes alone was not so bad, after all. Eto liked the idea of togetherness though. It made her grin once more, the points of her teeth revealed against the black of her lips.
"Sometimes, mama would group up with others," she mused, stretching out onto her belly and crawling forward to bask in the sun, "but...they never lasted long." It was spoken so calmly, so matter of fact, and yet images of what truly transpired momentarily flickerd in Eto's mind's eye: her brother chewing on their broken bodies, bloodied as her mother cried silently in the corner. Her mother's friends had just been children like her sometimes. Eto wasn't allowed to play with them. Her mother did the playing. Now though? Eto didn't want to play in that way. She just wanted to feel...warm. The thought of it all had made her ears sink back as she stared up at the sky for a moment. Somehow, she broke the spell, only for her eyes to fall back upon the woman.
"What does one do? To become... a gypsy?" She inquired with a tilt of her small head, "To become...alone but not alone?"