And just like that, Kikka feels they have fallen into an easy camaraderie. Gone is her earlier wariness of what she had suspected was a predatory nature in the stallion; Zevu is too open, too honest and likable to be a threat to her. She responds to his assent with a warm, if tremulous, smile, and immediately starts moving away from the brook and further into the woodland. "I think it will be enough just to have you explain specifics to me as we go," she says over her shoulder. The anxiety thudding through her chest has lessened, somewhat, now that she’s on the move again.
"Trell —my brother— he’s a very curious horse, and was so surprised to learn there was more to these lands than the first island we landed on. I think he’s looking to see which would make the best home for us.” This is a wild, wild guess, but Kikka can’t imagine why else her brother would ask her to go evaluate this first island. Because it makes the most sense, she decides it must be the truth. “Tell me," she continues, ducking under a particularly low-hanging evergreen branch. "The weather here, you said the sun doesn’t set? Is it day all the time, then? When do you sleep?"
Of greater interest to her, personally, is Zevu’s family life and relationship with the herd he grew up in. But she waits, good sister that she is, and asks first the questions she knows Trell would most want answered. Only then does she glance sidelong at the rich-cream male who accompanies her. "You should lead, actually," she says, and hesitates a step or two to allow him to do just that as she musters her courage to ask what she feels may be an invasive question. "I’ve no idea where inland is, really. You said—" her voice drops, suddenly shy. "You said you were born here? How big is your family?" Kikka has only Trell. She can’t remember it being any other way, but sometimes she wonders what it would be like, to call someone “mother” or “father” and experience the dynamic of a family like that. |