[EXP] our endless numbered days;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* Asterion regards her with the same prickling of unease, for she is like nothing he has seen before. She is a kirin, this he knows, and that is enough to make him wary – but she is as similar to the others he has met as a rough-cut amethyst is to a polished and set jewel. There is a wildness to her beauty, the flash of her opaline scales reminding him of nothing so much as the glimmer off a whale’s back in the water, or a hint of sunlight on wings. He takes her in steadily – the tangled moss, the curling antlers, the surprising vividness of her eyes – and wonders if he ever would have seen her, had not a column of sunlight happened to catch her scales at the right moment. The bay had not realized just how tense his muscles were until they eased when she spoke. He flicks an ear as he listens, and whisks his tail at a fly, and nods as he considers her reply.  “I see,” he says, feeling a little foolish, and though he wants to question her use of the word sapling he does not. He is too caught by her – she is far more interesting than a shabby, weathered building. Even her reflection in the murky water is lovely, scales iridescent as a dragonfly. Almost he misses her question as he watches the water ripple away from her tail, but then his eyes lift to hers. “I followed my feet,” he says, and shrugs a dark shoulder. "It is very lovely here." His skin prickles at the mention of creatures, but Asterion shakes his head before meeting her gaze again. “I was not afraid, but I know little of them. Should they frighten me?” And then, with a soft kind of smile, “Are you one of them?” It is half a joke, but he wonders, now, just who the kirin is, that she has lived here since she was small. Asterion does not want to be afraid of her – he would much rather be friends. @Rhea ahhhh I already like her, she seems so sweet