She wonders if he knows just how magnificent he is. He is like a flower in full bloom, like the richest of her mother’s gardens and the correlation brings a smile to her gentle mouth—turning the corners of her lips upward. “Really?” She brightens and all of it radiates through her, causing her to nearly glow with the pleasure that her healing had been received well—that he had liked it, that he hadn’t rejected it.
Larke tucks away the joy and lets it bank like a fire in the pit of her belly.
It warms her as she continues to watch him quietly, studying the angles of his face and the unique tattoos and the way that the heavens seem painted on him. The joy, however, quickly fades when she realizes what he is doing. It is replaced by worry that etches on her lovely features, the delicate porcelain of it nearly cracking as her lips pull in the corners, large doe eyes sweeping the area around them.
“She’s lost?” Her delicate voice is tenuous as she reaches out to press a reassuring touch into the curve of his neck. “I am sure that we can find her. Do you want me to help look for her?” She blushes prettily at the compliment, her lashes sweeping down and her teeth finding her lip as she rolls her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know how pretty I am.” Her voice fades off and she looks back up. “But it’s so sweet of you to say.”
She’s never been called pretty before and it feels queer to think it, but such things do not sink in too deep. She lets the glow of the compliment fade and she focuses on the issue at hand—the idea of the missing girl. Taking a step forward, she pauses tentatively, a single hoof dangling in the air as she looks back.
“I bet if we start looking around, we can find her. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
as the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet
@[Malone]