The bright peryton had already begun to make his way, trekking into one of the numerous pathways of the crossroads. "You see, my dear Harmaelinn," he started, not even bothering to turn towards he as he spoke. Aurbragol was a peryton with a mission, it seemed. "The sweet Alassiel is a beautiful creature, in all ways. Inexplicably so, in fact. To describe her virtues in words would be the grandest of feats," his words were whimsical but earnest. Had Harm be a being of less patience, it would have been tremendously difficult for her to not roll her eyes. "And as such, she deserves only the finest of offerings. Now, generally I would describe myself as being adequately capable of obtaining such tributes to my dearest love," one of his wings unfurled as he spoke and held to his chest in an exaggerating gesture, as if to show the depth of his convictions, "but I must concede that, at times, not even my talents can get a job done. Alas, I must put aside my pride to deliver tribute, but that if that is the undertaking that must be done then I am more than willing to accept the blow to my ego. As such, I have recruited you into my endeavors. I assume you have as least somewhat of a discerning eye. I mean, you're nothing compared to my dearest Alassiel, but you're…" he glanced back at her over his shoulder. "Fine, I guess."
Harmaelinn remained silent as she followed at his flank. She found that, when he got like this, it was best to just let it run its course. Interrupting him only exasperated the issue and pressed him on further. It was little giving encouragement to a child acting up just for the performance.
"So…" she said finally, having done her best not to roll her eyes. If she had been a less patient creature she was sure that her eyes would have already been in the back of her head. "So you've brought me out here to pick flowers for your girlfriend."
"Pretty much, yeah." Aurbragol looked back with a toothy smile and flicked his tailfeathers at her.
Despite herself, Harm let a chuff of a breath escape her nostrils. ’Just breath, Harmaelinn. Don’t take the bait. You’ll just edge him on further.’
Still, it occurred to her that nothing that Aurbragol rambled on about seemed disingenuous. Though he might have been doing it mostly to push her buttons, he didn’t seem to be overinflating his feelings towards Alassiel at all. There was a sort of twinkle in his eye when he spoke of his partner. A sort of timber in his voice that made it seem like some sort of joke and more honest and heartfelt and earnest. Not to say that Alassiel wasn’t a good peryton, or anything. Aurbragol’s praises just seemed a little… overinflated. The way he talked about her, it sounded like he saw something in her that… well. That was certainly something bigger and brighter than what everyone else could see.
“How are you so sure?” she asked quietly. Harm didn’t really mean for it to be an actual question for him. More like a question to the universe. So she flushed when her companion’s steps stopped in response to her words and he turned his head over his shoulder to acknowledge them. The peryton felt a tinge of embarrassment, like she had asked a question that had an obvious answer.
“What do you mean?”
“...I mean…” her voice trailed off and her cheeks became increasingly warm. For a moment she thought about backpedaling and pretending like she hadn’t asked anything in the first place.
She was already this far in, though. No harm in fully committing, right?
“I mean, how are you so sure about your feelings?” She asked the question, lingered on the silence for a moment, then quickly followed up. “Don’t get me wrong. Alassiel is wonderful and deserves praise, but…” She took a deep breath and paused to think over her words. Then, finding no delicate way to put it, she sighed. “How are you so sure about your feelings for her? For as long as I’ve known the two of you, you’ve always been so [i[sure. You speak of your admirations and of her merits as though they were facts as solid in truth as the fact that water is wet and the sunlight is warm.”
Aurbragol furrowed his brow at her, watching her in silence for a few moments longer than Harm had found comfortable.
Then he smiled.
“Never been in love before, have ya?”
Harmaelinn met his eyes. She blinked a couple of times, then dropped her gaze to her hooves. “...I love things. I feel love for my parents. For my family. I feel love for you and Alassiel…”
“But you haven’t been in love,” he pressed on. Aurbragol had turned fully towards her and had taken a few steps in her direction.
The peryton took another deep breath into her lungs and sighed it out heavily. “How are you supposed to know? That… That seems like such a loaded question. How are you supposed to know a feeling if you’ve never had it before?”
Aurbragol shrugged. “You didn’t need to be told what happiness was when you felt it for the first time, right? Didn’t need to be told what fear felt like.”
Harmaelinn’s ears twitched thoughtfully and her tailfeathers brushed back and forth behind her. Her eyes continued to search the ground at her feet, and she started to feel frustrated.
“Look,” Aurbragol said as he approached. The timber of his voice dropped from his loud enthusiasm to a quiet earnestness as he neared. “Don’t worry about it. All I’m saying is that you don’t need to look so hard to find answers to these things. You’re always looking so hard at the world. Trying to figure everything out. Something the answers just come, y’know? You just gotta relax and let it come to you, sometimes.”
Harm considered his words. Aurbragol was always a laid back creature. Just letting the world come to him. He never seemed to be in a hurry to go out and find it himself.
And he seemed pretty content.
She looked at him with a wry smile and one last sigh, this one resigned and accepting. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“Fantastic!” He said, his voice brightening once more. He bumped his hip against hers and barreled forwards once more. “No more philosophical waning. Time to pick my girlfriend some flowers.”
(WC: 1111)