Trees Need to Smile Too[Sseevrakressha]

by **Faval** on June 25th, 2012, 1:01 am

Faval’s first emotion was one of relief. In small part because she was comfortable here which meant she might stay awhile but mostly because she wasn’t upset with him for dragging her all the way out here for nothing. He had been slightly worried that she’d have been annoyed at the waste of time and eaten him or…something. His brain hadn’t quite let go of that fear of being devoured by a giant snake monster yet so there was still quite a bit of apprehension in…everything he did. That would have to be something he asked her about later though just to fully put his mind to rest…he’d also ask it with a healthy supply of arrows nearby. The nineteen he had on him might not be enough to defend himself if the words giant snake monster were equal to what was playing in his imagination. His imagination also happened to be incredibly overactive and his brain was already going off on a long tangent involving him heroically riding a stallion in to battle before heroically firing shot after shot from horseback, emptying a whole quiver in to the thousand foot tall beast before it dramatically crumbled in to a reptilian pincushion.

Reality, which honestly seemed a little more fantastical than the fantasies, snapped back to him as he felt her thumb along his hand. He looked down, not having truly realized that they were holding hands until just that moment and the deep shade of red returned to his face once he saw her fingers wrapped around his. He only barely processed her earlier statements about being able to set up a tent and camp out on the beach easily enough and that she wanted him to spend more time with her. The conspiracy theorist in the back of his head was screaming at him that she just wanted to lure him in to seclusion so she could eat him and bite off his head, why the two were separate he did not know, but he was quite easily overridden by the rest of Faval’s brain that truly wanted to spend some more time with her, despite the imagined risks. That, and he secretly wanted to learn how to ride Rahhale. Faval gently squeezed her hand in response, willingly locking his fingers with hers as he nervously looked back up at her face.

“I guess…I can stay with you for a little bit until you get the tent all set up and situated. Don’t really want to leave you out here all on your own for too long…thieves and what not…”

by **Kressha** on June 25th, 2012, 1:37 am

Kressha really didn't know what was going through Faval's head. She could tell that he was still nervous but she didn't know exactly how she was going to go about changing that. If she could have read his thoughts just then though, his little heroic adventure would have probably made her laugh. He was portraying her being so much more scary than she actually was, well, at the moment. She was playing good girl.

When he finally realized that their hands were together, she smiled as the blush returned to his cheeks. The kid had a good heart to be pumping that much blood to his face over and over again. As soon as she thought that, her mind carried on with the thought. How much redder his face would look if the blood was on the skin rather than under it, with it plastered in his unruly locks of hair. She bit at her lip again as her imagination started to get carried away, her grip on his hand tightening a little, not too much though to give away her actual strength.

His voice broke through her thoughts and she blinked a little before her own blush graced her cheeks. She loosened her grip on his hand and gave him a small smile. No, she wasn't going to fill him in on what she'd just been thinking. There'd be no way he'd stay in the tent with then. Hell, he'd probably run from her right then and there. "It ssshouldn't take long to get it ssset up." She bit at her lower lip again and squeezed his hand a little again, this time meaning to do it. "And if your worried about sse ssieves and what not... How will you sssleep at home tonight when you leave me all alone?" Not waiting for him to answer, she gave his hand a small tug as she pulled Rahhale in the other direction, effectively spinning them all around so they were facing the way they had originally come.

by **Faval** on June 25th, 2012, 2:36 am

Faval let himself be tugged along behind her and the horse for a few moments before he sped his legs up a little bit to stand next to her, coming to really enjoy holding her hand as they walked back toward the beach. He was actually enjoying it enough to the point where he did not even notice that she had tightened her grip on his hand, which was something he really should have noted as a warning sign for something ominous but he was far too busy enjoying the grip, both the intentional and the unintentional grips. Faval couldn’t remember a time he had even been around a woman for this long, much less been holding hands with one. What seemed like an incredibly simple matter to most was a pretty big leap for Faval and he was trying very hard not to mess it up. He wasn’t sure how hard to hold her hand or how loosely to hold it or where his fingers should be and though he masked it well, there was a slight hint of the panic he was feeling in his features. Thankfully, Kressha led the way for the most part and Faval could just apply the same or close to it, pressure that she was.

Her next question caught him off guard. He hadn’t really thought of that at all despite how painfully obvious a thought it was. If thieves could potentially attack her while she was awake, what was to stop them from doing it while she slept? Of course, that lame thief excuse was initially only that, an excuse, to spend more time with her but the holes in that not so clever plan were getting poked out very quickly. Faval scratched his head gently as he thought of a response that wouldn’t reveal his ineptitude at making up excuses.

“I…don’t know. I can…stay and keep watch until I think it’s safe…or something?

Genuis, Faval, nice save. The boy mentally nodded to himself in congratulations while they made up most of the ground that had covered earlier, Faval already starting to feel the heat again from his bare toes, not having been able to afford a good pair of shoes in awhile, radiating from the light reflecting beach front. Eager to change the subject off of his poor ability to lie, which was honestly something he’d be proud of any other day, Faval quickly turned the conversation to the only thing his brain was thinking of.

“What kind of tent is it?”

by **Kressha** on June 25th, 2012, 3:06 am

Kressha lead them back the way they had came, her arm that was holding Rahhale's lead held back behind her so the mare walked behind them rather than beside them. Didn't need to take up the road any more than they already were. She was a little surprised that he kept his hand in her's while they walked. His fear of her must have been fading away, or so she thought. Here he was offering to protect her from thieves and any other danger. If he were still afraid.. No, nervous around her, he wouldn't off to help like that would he?

Hearing the response to her question, she shifted her eyes over toward him and gave him a smile. "How do I know you aren't sse ssieve just waiting to lure me out ssere? Firssst asssking if I wanted to ssstay wiss you at your houssse, ssen telling me ssat sse ssstablesss don't take in mounts, and now offering to watch over me ssrough sse night until you ssink it isss sssafe?" She came to a slow stop in the middle of the street, hand still gripped in his, looking him over from head to two. She really didn't have anything to really worry about from thieves. No, if someone decided to try and rob her, well, she'd have herself an easy meal then. That was if she was hungry, if she wasn't, it was just play time. After a moment of just looking at him, she smiled again and shook her head, her hair swaying from side to side over her shoulders as she did so. "Nah, you aren't a ssieve." She said before starting to walk again, pulling him along with her.

Coming up to the beach again, she smiled as she caught sight of the sand again and stopped them while still on the road. Pulling her hand out of his finally, she bent down and pulled her boots off and stuffed them into one of the bags attached to her saddle. Looking down at her feet then, she smiled as her toes curled and stretched, feeling the heat of the sun under her. Taking Rahhale's lead again, she offered her hand to Faval again. He had been the one to take it the first time and she didn't want to scare him away from her again by taking it again. Easier to have him come to her. "Itsss a big tent, nossing fancy. Large enough ssat you can keep watch ssstill and not be clossse to me if you ssstill don't want to."

by **Faval** on June 25th, 2012, 3:40 am

Faval, well to be frank, had never looked so stunned in his entire life. He had spent the better part of their interaction imagining some horrible ways for her to kill him in the middle of the woods and leave him to a wide assortment of carrion birds while a wolf slurped up his intestines like a plate of spaghetti and not once did he consider it from the opposite perspective. If you thought of conventional society, it’d usually be the guy who was questionable in this situation, not the five foot nothing woman who didn’t look like she could kill a fly, much less Faval, so it was all the more pathetic now that he was the one deathly afraid of something horrible befalling him. Before he could even think to defend himself against the impugnation on his character, Kressha had already assured him that she didn’t think him a thief and while the stupor didn’t leave his face, he did feel a little bit better that she wasn’t at all afraid of him, despite that it took maybe five seconds to realize that Faval was harmless. The first five seconds just usually tended to involve him pointing a weapon at people. It wasn’t always the best of ice breakers.

As the stunned stupor drained from his face, it was soon replaced with a sense of depressing as her hand left his. He didn’t understand his emotions today at all, why did he care so much about holding her hand? Faval violently shook his head, hoping to jar his brain back in to place or to even jar it out of place, whichever one brought back his usual calm. Hopefully, the girl was too busy with her footwear to notice Faval’s momentary convulsion. Faval, watched her toes stretch out and enjoy the same heat that his seemed to but given their earlier conversation, she was probably enjoying it substantially more than he was. As her hand reached out to his and got in the way of him looking at her feet, Faval’s eyes sheepishly rose to meet hers as she explained the dimensions of her tent. While the option to not be too close to her was appealing to the little conspiracy theorist in the back of his head, Faval gently took her hand in his once more as his eyes, still rather sheepishly, turned down to the ground. The averted eyes were followed by a nearly inaudible mumbling as Faval was not the best at expressing anything close to resembling an intimate emotion.

“I don’t think I’d mind all that much if we were close…”

by **Kressha** on June 25th, 2012, 4:04 am

Kressha didn't let her amusement show on her face as she looked at the stunned one that was on his. He hadn't thought of them from someone else's eyes it seemed. Being the new girl in town and looking about as old as Faval, or around that age range at least, it would make more sense if he was trying to take advantage of her? Hell to being a thief, he could be any number of things that would be dangerous to a young human female. Could be a murder, a rapist, a slaver... Hell, even a combination of them all. Even though she was lucky enough not to be human and be a Dhani instead, she still liked the thrill of being with someone that was possibly a major threat. Though, she had thought that even with her speech having a hiss to it that she still looked rather human. She'd have to think up something to fix whatever she had done wrong to get Faval to be so on edge around her. Get him to think differently.

When she took her hand from him and was busy pulling off her boots, she didn't see the shake and tumble of his head, but doing that kinda movement usually tended to shake the whole body and she saw the movement in his legs which brought a smirk to her face. She could tell by how he was acting he wasn't any of those dangerous things she had thought before. Not unless he was a skilled actor and this was all a ruse, but that didn't seem to be the case. The way he blushed and stammered out his words just seemed too real. Feeling his fingers slip back into her hand after she had stood up, she gave him a soft smile as her fingers curled around his. Her head tilted and she leaned forward toward him, following the turn of his head as he looked away. That sheepish look looked real as well. Man, if she could figure out how to pull that look off she'd be set. She'd be able to lure in all the bad men of Mizahar and have her fun with them. She was close enough to catch his mumbles and even though she couldn't understand some of it, she got the general idea. Still leaning in close, she keeps her voice low, to match his. She did it on purpose too, in hopes to stur out another dark blush on his cheeks. "I only have the one bedroll..." She whispered, biting her lower lip again as she tried her best to hide the glint of excitement in her eye.

by **Faval** on June 25th, 2012, 4:25 am

There were few things in this world that were more ridiculous than the thought of Faval being a rapist/slaver/thief/homicidal maniac, though he could probably make a fair bit of money as an actor, he had the wide range of embarrassing facial expressions to complement it. The woman specifically fishing for those embarrassing facial expressions did quite a good job at bringing them out though and Faval wasn’t one to disappoint it would seem. She didn’t even make it to the seductively low voice before Faval’s face was turning a deep shade of crimson. As she entwined her fingers with his and got closer than she had since her strange display with the arrow, and Faval thoroughly enjoyed it a little bit too much for his common sense’s liking. The rest of his body was thoroughly enjoying it however and he gently squeezed her hand in his. Faval’s head turned away to look out over the beach in a desperate attempt to hide his embarrassingly red face as his brain processed what all “one bedroll” could possibly mean.

“One bedroll…that’s close…”

Even if he wasn’t sharing it with a woman as beautiful as Kressha, a bedroll sounded like heaven to Faval. He had spent a lot of his life sleeping on things like street corners and using garbage cans for pillows or sleeping tucked away in the rafters. Sufficed to say, bedrolls were infinitely more comfortable than what he spent the majority of his life sleeping on, so the thought was even more appealing to Faval than it would have been to most people. He wasn’t, however, sure how he was supposed to react if they did share a bed and it had made him rather nervous. When she was going to stay at his apartment, he had already planned to let her sleep in his bed while he bought a rug to sleep on. Now he didn’t quite have that possibility as he didn’t think she had an extra rug for him to sleep on. They didn’t usually adorn tents with rugs. As much as he had decided he wanted to be closer to her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep if they were sharing a bedroll. He’d be too worried about where his hands were or what his legs were doing or be afraid he moved in his sleep or something and kept her awake all night because he was kicking or something. The last part he knew wasn’t true, he had slept in places where the slightest bit of movement might have dropped him twenty feet on to his head, but it seemed like a good thing to mentally complain about.

“I guess I could sleep on the floor of the tent when I’m done…with keeping watch…I’ve slept on worse…”

by **Kressha** on June 25th, 2012, 4:57 am

Kressha felt her brows raise a little in amusement as his cheeks started to darken before she even mentioned the bedroll. She was definatly liking this kinda reaction she was getting over his scared fleeing one she'd gotten from him before. How she wanted to reach up and touch at his cheeks. Would the skin be hot like those that got burnt by the sun? How far did the blush go? Was it just a mask on his face or did it spread farther and farther the more she pulled it out of him? Keeping her hands away from his face, she licked at her lips again before pulling away as he looked in the other direction. She'd have to move to his other side to keep in line with his gaze and, bah, she already had him blushing. Rubbing circles with her thumb against the back of his hand again, she just smiled and nodded her head. "SShat isss very clossse indeed." She was glad that he wasn't thinking enough to suggest they go get another one, or back out of staying with her all together.

Shaking her head, she gave his hand a small tug as she started walking again, her feet slipping easily into the warm sand and causing a slight cooing sound. Oh it felt nice and warm. The simple pleasures really did get to her. She didn't say anything more as they walked, Faval at her side their hands still locked together and Rahhale moving slowly behind them. The horse had been raised to walk in the desert sands of Eyktol so the sand on the beach here was nothing. It was practically sold to the mare. Once they got got back to the little clearing that she had originally found them in, she comes to a stop and looks around. She could see the water from where they were standing yet were still far enough in the trees that the sand was not so, well, sandy. It was a nice private little area indeed.

"Do people not normally come out here?" She asks, slipping her hand free of his grasp again so she could work at undoing the saddle strap on Rahhale. It took less time taking it off than it had putting it on and she didn't have to have the mare kneel down either. Slipping the saddle and pad off the mare, she let out a small grunt at the weight then set the stuff down over by one of the trees around them. While still bent over, she dug around in her pack for a bit more until she found a curry and came back. Rahhale was decently trained and hadn't moved even after Kressha had dropped the lead. Pulling loose hair off the brush, she patted the mare's side before starting to brush her. "I need to tend to her firssst ssen I will work on the tent." She said, peeking over her shoulder to look at him then smiling. "Or you could do the tent while I brusssh or vissse vursssa?" There wasn't really any reason for him to just stand there, though if he did she didn't mind. With each stroke of the brush she let her hips sway from side to side with the movement. It wasn't much, but it was slight enough that it looked like it was happening naturally instead of her purposely moving just to play at him.

by **Faval** on June 25th, 2012, 5:08 pm

“People do come around occasionally, but the most part people in Zeltiva tend to be busy in Zeltiva. It’s an active place, a lot of trading and running around. They don’t usually have time for things like beach trips and when they do, it tends to be a spot closer to the city so they are not so far removed from their deals and trades and other general work. I’m not the norm for people who live in Zeltiva.”

He spoke as he was willingly tugged along in to the warm sand, his eyes noting how easy it was for her horse to move through the loose ground which was impressive given her weight. Faval didn’t have any such acumen when moving through sand. His feet always sunk and slowed him down. It was thankful that he had never actually been attacked…at all really but specifically on the beach. Kressha was even more at home in the sand than her horse, so it wasn’t because the horse was talented because it was a horse. She must have spent a lot of time in the dessert. No, dessert wasn’t the word. That was pie. What was the word? It didn’t matter because Faval again felt that sense of longing when their hands separated but this time he had a goal and task to distract him from it. As Kressha attended to brushing her horse, something Faval understood nothing about, Faval decided it was best if he tackle the other task of putting up the tent and nodded toward where the saddle fell to let her know which he was going to do. His first big challenge was figuring out which one was actually the tent. Faval only stared at the mass of equipment that fell on the ground with the horse’s saddle for a few minutes, trying to figure out what a tent looked like when it wasn’t already set up. He had only seen pictures of pitched tents before and had no idea what he was looking for.

Faval eventually found a bunch of rods and the fabric that made the tent…he hoped…before setting out in to a more open area of sand. Faval had decided to set it on the sand since Kressha seemed to enjoy it so much and after a few minutes of starring at the different parts, trying to figure out what any of them did, Faval slowly started to get a working idea for how it should work. Grabbing one of the poles and making sure the fabric was connected tightly, Faval shoved the pole in to the sand, erecting it to its full height. It didn’t take long for Faval to realize that the sand wasn’t compact enough to hold the tent, but Faval wasn’t going to give up. Setting the pole back down, Faval ran back over to the trees and after a few minutes of poking around, found four nice, round, and big rocks. Scurrying back to the unpitched tent, Faval repeated the process of erecting the really large mobile living space. As the pole started to fall, Faval braced it against one of the four stones and, thank the gods, it stayed. Excitedly, Faval grabbed another one of the poles and walked down the beach until the fabric was stretched out, assuming that was where he should move it to, and repeated to jab the pole in to the sand and brace it against the rounded stone.

Rounded stone would be the mistake however. Well, one of the mistakes, there really were several mistakes that he made, which was the norm to be perfectly honest. As Faval stretched out the third pole, a heavy seafront current rolled in and ripples crashed through the tent. Faval watched, struck with horror, as the sand shifted and the poles rolled right off the stones with the little push the wind gave. Faval, making the mistake of walking along the inside of the tent, quickly found the large piece of fabric crashing down on his face. The tent collapsed on top of the boy and a distinctive human shaped outline was quite visible in the sand.

“Help…”

by **Kressha** on June 25th, 2012, 6:31 pm

Kressha gave a small nod of her head as she listened. She understood what he meant by people not liking to venture far from their protective walls. The wild was a dangerous place if one didn't know how to take care of ones self. "Being part of a norm can be boring, I ssink." She said, her eyes still shifted downward to watch as her feet sifted the the sand as they walked. Kressha had never part of a normal society, well, perhaps when she was still living back at her nest, but compared to human culture, her race wasn't normal. There were very few Dhani left and most of what people know about them were just stories or rumors that got passed around.

When they got to the clearing and Faval took up the task of setting up the tent, Kressha left him to it, pointing toward her saddle. "Itsss right ssere on sse back of... No, not ssat, ssat isss my tarp." When he found the right one with the poles, she gave a small nod of her head and looked away. She loved Rahhale, or as much as a Dhani could love something. Kressha didn't really have many close friends and her family all mainly still lived in the Eyktol area. Seeing her as more than just a source of travel, Kressha did her best to care for the beast. She ran the curry over her whole backside and down her legs before switching to the other side to do the same. Once that was done, she took a moment's break to pull out the stray horse hair the brush had accumulated so far and watched Faval. Lifting her brow a bit as he wandered into the trees and came back a moment later with rocks, she just watched in confusion as he propped the poles up and it was then that she realize he was trying to set the tent up in the sandy part of the beach. Laughing a little, she shook her head but didn't interrupt him. He almost had an excited look, like he was accomplishing something. If the rocks held, they held, simple as that. Starting in on Rahhale's mane, she took her time brushing out all the knots in her hair before moving around to do her tail next, making sure to stand off to the side so she wasn't directly behind her. She trusted her mount, but she'd also seen the mare kick before and didn't wish to feel that.

Hearing Faval call out to her a few moments later, she turned and just started laughing at what she saw. The fabric of the tent was soaking up the water as it lay on the wet sand and right in the middle, in the dry outline of a man, stood Faval. Tossing the horse brush off toward her saddle, she patted Rahhale on the rump before moving over through the sand, her toes making slight squishing sounds as the mud squished up between her toes with each step. "Little clossse to sse water, huh?" She asks, lifting the edge and raising it above her head so she could peek in at Faval. "Trick wiss sssand isss get the polesss really deep ssso ssey are sssecure in place. Dirt up by sse treesss isss better." Nodding her head at him to come out of there, she let the rest of the fabric get wet as she set about rolling it up again before lifting it, the water now soaking into her clothes. "Grab sse rodsss?" She asked, peeking over at him as she started away from the water toward the tree line.

Finding a spot that looked large enough for the tent, she dropped the bundle down to the ground with a thump, it weighing a bit more than before cause it was wet. "Firssst we need to make sssure it will fit where we want it." She said as she unrolled it. Her muddy feet tracked little footprints over the fabric but she didn't seem to care. Stretching it out so that the four corners were where they should be, she checked to make sure the opening was facing the beach like she wanted to before she smiles and nods her head. "Now sse rodsss, sse little onesss. I'll ssshow you where to put ssem if you wanna try again. Ssey need to go in at an angle... Like ssis." She said as she tilted her hand at about a 45 degree angle before she knelt down at one of the corners, her finger starting to dig a shallow little hole for where she wanted the rod to go down in. There was a little loop in the fabric where the rod would slip through and latch onto to hold it in place. "Ssere are sse little rodsss for each of sse cornersss, two larger onesss for sse front and sse back. Ssossse onesss are jointed ssso need to hook them togesser." Getting up and moving to another corner, she adds another little hole as a guide for him if on the off chance he couldn't understand her speech.