Had she been more aware maybe she would have seen him. Like her, he is quiet. His presence has little effect on their surroundings, again like her. With her eyes staring curiously outward to the autumn scenery she doesn't pay attention to what - or who - is next to her. Long minutes (or has it been hours?) pass and she is peering out as though she isn't in the meadow, like she is watching from a different vantage point in another body. With having adapted to the silence and solitude Cerva is content being on the outskirts - standing on the outside looking in - but there are days when she longs for attention. It has been quite a while since she has last seen her family. They are all becoming mere figments of her memory. On some days she closes her eyes and pictures them all together, but again, she is on the outside looking in, not huddled among them.
Without having realized it Cerva is doing that now. It's so realistic, this image playing on the inside of her eyelids. There's Daemron and Nihlus, mother and father. They are all there turning to look at her and smiling. She grins back at them, but as she lays pause her world tumbles away and her eyes open.
There is a male looking at her. His voice reverberated in her mind, his gentle hello waking her from a sleep she didn't know was happening. "Oh," she whispers in surprise as she meets his eyes. He has already closed the distance between them. The naked branches of the oak are sprawled above both of them now. She can feel her heartbeat thrumming in her throat as she almost takes solace in shifting and hiding. That's all she has ever really done, after all. To avoid conversation with most Cerva would simply alter her body into that of a badger so that she could more easily scamper away and avoid having to pretend being someone she wasn't.
So what holds her so steadily in place now?
This is the meadow, she tells herself. This isn't the Valley and he isn't a familiar. Here, she can be herself. Here, she doesn't have to hide behind a mask.
A smile adorns her pretty face. "Cerva," her voice is sugared and silky, "it's a pleasure to meet you." She means it. This is the first time that she can reach out and be unafraid of rejection. He doesn't have standards for her. This is where she can begin her life truly and stop hiding in the shadows of her parents.
Cerva
well, you're doing a fantabulous job because I think he's adorable <3