There’s something … exhilarating about the way that Joscelin speaks her name. A shiver involuntarily runs the course of Astri’s spine and settles somewhere deep in her gut, twisting there as she inhales deeply to try and contain this strange sensation. She’d never felt this way before - whatever this way was. The green girl blinks and looks away from the shattered mare, eyes drifting to where Dacia was playing quite contentedly some feet away. She silently compares this moment to the one where Killdare had come for her advice. He’d said her name, hadn’t he? She certainly hadn’t let it her affect her the way it was irking her now. Then again, it hadn’t been said with the same connotation, the same appreciation.
“Joscelin.” She replies, the word falling from her tongue like a single pearl. She can’t help herself now, can’t stop the shy smile that flickers briefly and then fades away. Who was she, and why was Joscelin making her out to be an air-headed filly? The solemn “No” that drops like a deadweight between them causes her to snap from her hazy moment of insecurity, and she looks back to the oddly amused mare with a quizzical expression. Astri tries very hard to contain herself, but the bark of unappealing laughter that leaps from her throat and causes her to shake her head simply won’t be contained.
“It’s funny that you put it that way.” She begins, trying to quiet the light chuckles that follow. “I couldn’t agree with you more, of course, but I’ve certainly never heard it explained the way you put it. Especially coming from … well, you know, you.” She says, feeling all at once that the tension from before has now disappeared. She sighs, shifts imperceptibly closer to Joscelin, and stares emptily at her child. She wants to tell the glimmering mare that the results are worth the degradation and embarrassment of a few seconds, but something about the way the other woman carries herself stops her.
Astri is far from the ideal mare herself. She isn’t rounded hips and suggestive eyes. She’s an older, feral, more practical sort of beauty that often goes unappreciated in the wilds of Beqanna today. Outside of this world, she is a target, and the hard lines of her face and the sharp edges of her shoulders betray that she’s been a fighter since birth. Joscelin, however, is something altogether unreal and hauntingly beautiful. Even now, as Astri tries to refrain from looking back at her, the bright flashes of light burn in her memory. “I look around me at the other mares and wonder if I’m missing something.” She murmurs. “Like a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of them.”
She’s rambling, she knows this. But she’s never told anyone how she’s felt before (its never been necessary) and somehow she reasons that if she never sees Joscelin again, well then at least she’s gotten it off her chest.
astri
OOC: It was worth the wait =)