The forest was quiet with new tension as the two parties sized each other up. As it turned out, the two travelers that had been hunched by the fire moments before were a pair of women. Though most humans looked fairly alike to Varin, he could tell by the flickering firelight that first of the two didn’t hail from Corone. Her features were reminiscent of the desert folk he saw in his stolen books when he was young. The second woman didn’t seem entirely human. Her skin seemed a little too glossy, for one, and her eyes had the look of a predator. Varin held his breath and looked away from her bright golden gaze. For a moment, he was afraid that they had sent out the call, and that it had been a sort of lure after all.
Suspicion made the shiny, predator woman’s words cutting and glassy. Her voice was powerful, and it made him uneasy. Judging from her stance, she was ready to take some sort of defensive action against him. "I didn't hear anything," she told the Drakari plainly, practically undressing him with her eyes. He couldn’t help but shrink back into the shadows at her gaze. "You're taking a fair chance wandering the woods at night. Not afraid of getting eaten?"
As if she were some sort of guard dog, Arie hopped in front of him at the first sign of aggression, cheeping fiercely at the woman when her voice turned cold. She stared at the little bird in either startled mistrust or muted amusement -- Varin had a bit of trouble deciphering human expressions.
“Arie, no. That is a bad fight to pick. Come back here,” he commanded. “Away from the strangers.” As the little sparrow scampered back to her master, Varin gave the shiny woman a sharp look. “There are things I fear more than the belly of a beast,” he replied, delicate fangs bared. His wings fluttered, not unlike a cat raising it’s hackles to appear more fearsome. “I might ask you what it is that you are doing here. Either you are out here because you are as desperate as I, or you are just as cocksure as you assumed I to be.”
During this conversation, the foreign woman had begun a sultry swaying that build up into a dance in the dark. For a moment, he had dismissed her as crazy, but she had a lot of intent to what she was doing. In fact, the fluid movements seemed almost reflexive, defensive. They were both captivating and obnoxiously distracting to him. Varin’s gaze darted warily between her and the shiny one. They were just acting so… odd.
Realization struck him very suddenly upside the head. Well, of course they were as guarded as they -- they were likely making the same kneejerk conclusion he had come to when he had first heard the cry! Varin slowly held up his empty hands, hoping not to frighten them further. “In any case, I apologize for interrupting you. I am unarmed,” except for my fists, “so request that you please not unleash any sort of wrath upon myself. Are you certain you did not hear anything?”
It would be just his luck for it to have all been in his head all along. Perhaps wandering alone was driving him mad after all.
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