Like Finnian, Maude is swept away in thoughts, despite her desire to focus most primarily on the new world around her; memories of home press on her in this land, and with them, comes a heavy heartedness that quickly enfolds her despite her attempts to stay abreast of the sorrow for at least one afternoon. Her antlered crown is soon low, her eyes blurred with the unshed, fine veneer of tears that one struggles to keep at bay, and she just wants the lonely, terrible feeling to go away. It doesn’t ease no matter how she bids it, though, and neither do the memories of people she had known and cared for being swept away in clouds of ash and fire, or the sight and sound of hundreds of Helovians seeking escape from a total destruction. She was almost glad, then, to have company – at least after she got done being startled by the appearance of what, as far as Maude was concerned, anyway, was a swamp monster. “Ah!” she shouts, her tears immediately dried up in a swift rush of adrenaline and fear. The cry itself is a girlish sound accompanied with the splatter of her hooves crashing down into and splashing the mud up onto her belly from below; no sooner does she scurry back two paces, her antlers instinctually lowered for defense (not that she has a clue how to use them), however, then she notices that the monster is actually just a man, covered in mud. How he got so is something Maude is unsure of; he is quite measurably taller than she is, even at a glance. Perhaps not everyone is as careful in the murk as she is, she thinks, feeling her heart hammer against her ribs as she pieces together what had been said by the muddy man. “Well, to be perfectly honest, mister mud-man sir, I’ll be lost no matter where I am here,” she answers, because, well, she technically is. It’s not like there was a great big map hanging on the wall at the tower in the Court, after all, and no one else had drawn her one, either. The girl figured it was going to be like discovering Helovia, after her father went away on sabbatical; she would just have to walk it, and find out for herself. “But you are welcome to walk with me. I was just wondering which way I should go.” She looks back out across the swamp, her half-lie lingering in the air awkwardly between them. Wondering if this fellow has the same lie detection skills that her daddy seemed to (any father did, really, when it came to their children), she quickly continues on, so he can’t condemn her of misleading him, in order to avoid her pitiful mood. Smiling and returning her spring green eyes towards the unicorn, she adds, politely: “I’m Maude,” cheerfully (as she might today, at least) quips the maiden, the wind tousling her clean mane playfully, “what’s your name?” that I will see the Light |
@Finnian
