HEAVY IS THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN;
Warmth radiated off of her blue mottled skin. It comforted Gavriel; it reminded him that - for a moment - he is not alone in this frozen common land. Slyly he stole a glance at her, admiring the curve of her forehead and how her eyelashes swept over her blue-grey eyes with each blink. Beautiful.
He then shifted his green gaze to the distant horizon where the pale blue sky met with the deep ocean blue. His breath lingered on his whiskered lips as he waited for her to speak. He hoped that he had not intruded in her silence or even interfered with her meeting another. But when she spoke she soothed his anxieties and fears. She did not shoo him away - no, she added to their conversation.
"I am unfamiliar with these lands, I'm sorry to say, Gavriel. She is a newcomer to the Islands, unknowing of the separate chain of islands in the shallow ocean waters and unknowing of the common lands they stand upon. "Perhaps you can tell me more about it?"
A whisper of smile spread across his whiskered lips at the prospect of sharing his birth home with the mottled maiden. "Zaulane," he paused as he tried her name across his tongue. ...it is unlike any place you have ever seen (he assumed), there are snow-capped mountain peaks, dark pine forests, and even hot springs that bubble and hiss. Have you ever seen a hot spring?" he curiously asked with a tilt of his crown. "They are quite enjoyable, especially during the frigid winter's of Tinuvel." he mused aloud.
"What brought you to the Islands?" Was she like so many others who washed ashore homeless and frightened? Or like those who had come here to seek out a new beginning, full of promise?
