Just a Lil' Batty [Xenon <3]

[Lucca]

"Sascha?" Mirriam giggled slightly. "I never knew that a boy could be named that." Bright, cheerful, friendly...but rather blunt. Such was the way of the very young. "My name's Mirriam," she added, since she hadn't mentioned it before either. She made a mental note for next time...introductions should probably happen before initiating a game of tag. As much as playing tag seemed like a far more exciting way to meet someone than just shaking hands!

The little Bat was still young enough to be entirely ignorant of crushes and attraction and all the things that went along with it. She had just barely begun to notice boys, and as such, she meant her compliment to Sascha innocently and honestly. "Hmm. Well, still, the tree should be a little more understanding! It should take a lesson from its fellow trees to only give good things to people," Mirriam said, looking back at the tree in question. "I mean there's a tree down by the lake that gives out peaches! Have you ever had a peach, Sascha? They're very sweet!" She turned to smile back at him. He was a Bat, like her! She was sure he also liked yummy fruit.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The bat hybrid's big ears folded back at that, and he looked down at his feet. Yeah, he'd heard that one before. A few times, actually. But his dad had given him the name, and now his dad... Right. A brief flicker of sadness crossed his face, but he hoped that she wouldn't notice it. "Funny story, actually. In most places it's a name for boys and girls. But a long time ago, there was a Solandrian Governor who was named Sascha, and he didn't like that." The boy had read the story once, and he'd thought it was pretty funny. It had stuck with him. "So he - ah - he made a law that said that only boys could be named Sascha. Heh."

Wow, way to fail at telling stories. Oh, well. "Mirriam's a nice name. I bet no one wonders if you're a boy or a girl." He gave her a silly little smile, a little bit teasing on the edges.

Then he was fairly trampled by a barrage of words. Sascha blinked, sitting up a little bit straighter, his ears perking forward. Wow. This girl kinda reminded him of someone. His grin broadened. She was really like he had been, wasn't she? Before life had grabbed him and shaken him all around and made him so much more quiet and careful. It was refreshing and nice. "I appreciate the effort. And yes, I have had a peach. My dad loves - loved - peaches." There was that sadness again. "I uh. I like 'em too, sometimes." Mostly, though, he took after his Eagle blood in terms of what he liked to eat.

[Lucca]

Mirriam giggled. That was a funny story! "I see! Solandria is the really cold place, huh?" And then she realized that...Sascha himself must be from there! That was why his swirls were all blue and brown. It actually looked very nice, and reminded her of ice cream for some reason. Her large ears perked forward and she beamed at him. But giggled again at at his next words, and found her face getting a little warm for some reason. She shook her head. "Nooope! They always know."

Though she hadn't really met many Cards it was hard to tell if they were a boy or a girl. At least she didn't think she ever had! But now they were talking about peaches and...and Dads. Mirriam's ears pulled back and her eyes got wide. She noticed the tense correction and the sudden sadness around Sascha...he must have lost his Dad too, just like her! Only...she wasn't really supposed to talk about her Dad, for reasons she didn't fully understand yet. She opened her mouth as if to speak, shut it again...and then reached out one of her little clawed feet, curling it clumsily around Sascha's foot. She wondered if her Dad would have liked peaches...she'd never even seen them before coming to the palace here, as they didn't really seem to grow in Avington. She wanted to say something comforting, say she understood what it was like, to not be able to see your Daddy anymore, but she just...couldn't. She looked up at him, wide brown eyes intense, hoping her expression might help where words failed.

[carcinoGeneticist]

This was an interesting conversation. Then again, Sascha had grown up surrounded by family, and a lot of the realms unknown to many were built right into their bloodlines. He bobbed his head in an affirmative answer to her question. "That's the one."

But the sadness was a little more than he knew how to handle, yet. All his life, the hybrid had been the happiest of his siblings, even when times had been rough. But in the last few months, everything had come tumbling down around him. Raina had moved out. Andrei didn't even seem to like him anymore. And then his parents died. Both of them, within a week of each other. It might have been poetic to some, but to Sascha, it just plain wasn't fair.

But here he was in the Court of Diamonds, a cute little Bat holding his hand - foot - and looking up at him with eyes that understood. He gave her a half-smile, and shook his head slightly. No. Now wasn't a time to dwell on it.

"Can you show me the peach trees?" He said abruptly, changing the subject.

[Lucca]

Sascha's look was encouraging, and Mirriam felt a swell of warmth in her heart, because she felt he understood what she'd been wordlessly trying to tell him. She held his gaze for a long time, eyes still holding the understanding of sorrow beyond her years, until the other Bat shook his head and smiled. Mirriam felt a small, subdued smile spread across her face in response.

Of course, the seriousness of the moment was shattered when, at Sascha's question, the small smile on Mirriam's face shifted into a large grin, and her eyes regained their childish, playful look. "Sure, I'd be happy to! Just follow me!" She did squeeze his foot, once, before spreading her wings and taking off, looking back once to be sure she was being followed before fluttering towards the lake and the small orchard next to it.

She landed upside down on one of the branches and began to crawl across the limb, examining each fruit she came to. "It's just a little early in the season, I think, but there should be at least a couple of ripe ones...here we go!" Carefully, the Bat used her wing claws to detach a peach from the tree, leaf nose wiggling in appreciation of how sweet it smelled, and offered it to Sascha.

[carcinoGeneticist]

That little bit of contact was amazingly refreshing. He couldn't fully understand how or why she did, but Mirriam seemed to know what he was going through. Best of all, she understood without pressuring him to go into the rather painful details. Maybe he would talk about it at some point, but now just wasn't the time. He was exploring someplace new with someone new, and he intended to fully enjoy every minute of it.

The squeeze of his foot, though. That made the bat hybrid pause, his ears twitching. At least she took to the air quickly... It meant that she didn't notice the blush that had quickly colored his pale cheeks. Quickly, Sascha regained his wits and spread his wings, giving them a few powerful flaps to send him after the Diamond.

When they reached the trees, the boy carefully found a good branch, using both his feet and the claws at the tips of his wings to better stabilize himself. Hanging upside-down from the branch... He thought, briefly, about his brother, who was far more Bat than he was personally, and the thought brought a smile to his face. He followed along above her on the branch, occasionally sniffing at one of the ones she passed by, wondering exactly what her sensitive nose was picking up. They all just smelled vaguely fuzzy to him... When she found whatever it was she was looking for, Sascha accepted it happily, giving it another sniff.

Huh. Maybe it smelled a little sweeter?

After a moment, he looked at the Bat, ears drooping. "I'm not a very good Fruit Bat, I think. How do you pick a ripe one?"

[Lucca]

Mirriam beamed at her new friend as he took the fruit. She, of course, really had no idea that others might not have as sensitive a nose as she did. It was a continual surprise to the young Bat whenever she learned about how differently some Cards saw the world. But since Sascha seemed 'mostly' Bat to her, she didn't even really think of the fact that instead of a little leaf nose, he had part of a beak.

She was in the middle of twisting off another peach for herself when Sascha said that, and Mirriam turned in surprise, peach held in her wingclaws. "Sascha, you're a very good Fruit Bat!" she assured him, not liking how sad he looked. "And you just...you smell it, and the ripe ones smell much sweeter whereas the unripe ones...you can barely smell them at all." She shrugged a bit, tilting her head at him and trying to puzzle out why exactly he didn't think he made a good Bat. "The ripe ones are also a bit more squishy!" She poked at the one she held to demonstrate, giggling slightly.

Mirriam wiggled her nose and then...that was when she noticed that Sascha didn't actually have one, despite being part Bat. Huh! Maybe that was why he thought he was a bad Bat? But it wasn't his fault he hadn't inherited that particular trait! Besides, he had that pretty swirly mane to make up for it.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Hesitantly, the mix probed at the peach with his claws. It did feel squishier, now that she mentioned it. Once, he'd found a peach in the kitchen that one of the helpers had bought. His father had scoffed and snorted at it, calling it garbage and telling them that it would take years for a fruit like that to get ripe enough to be edible.

Compared to this, it had been hard as a rock. Closing his eyes, Sascha opened his beak and dug the pointed tip into the fruit - then let out a startled gasp.

"Wow!" He said, drawing back to look at it, his eyes wide with excitement. Compared to this one, the other peach had tasted a lot like a rock, too! This seemed to be a bag of juice, barely contained by the furry skin that surrounded it. He licked the edges of his beak and smiled, despite himself. "This is... amazing. Wow, oh man. My dad would have loved this."

The sadness threatened to rise within him again, but Sascha carefully stowed it into the back of his mind. Carefully, he extended the fruit to Mirriam, still smiling. She was a Fruit Bat, just like Seth had been. She would probably love it, too. "Do you want to share?"

[Lucca]

Mirriam found herself watching Sascha, as he went to take his first bite of the fruit...brown eyes unusually intent. She didn't realize she had been staring, and if she had, she might not have thought much of it, being too young to realize (though old enough to know better, if she actually paid attention). For some reason, it was very important to her that the fruit met with the hybrid's approval. Her feet dug harder into the branch as he took a bite and...

Mirriam grinned widely, ears perking up in happiness. There was the mention of his Dad again, but the little Bat refused to think of her own family, not now! She leaned forward in case he needed comfort again...with the result that she her nose was fairly close to his face when he glanced up at her. "Yeah!" Forgetting about her own peach (because sharing was always more fun!) Mirriam arched her head a bit to take a big, juicy bite of the fruit. She hmmed happily around it, feeling the burst of sweetness on her tongue.

[carcinoGeneticist]

As he nibbled at the fruit, Sascha was very acutely aware of the way Mirriam was watching him. Her fascination was strange to him, but at the same time, it didn't seem... awkward? Was that the word? It didn't really matter, because she seemed to be quite happy that he'd enjoyed the peach, and in turn that made him feel a whole lot better about the whole ordeal.

Woah, hey. That was a little twitchy-wiggly leaf nose, right in front of his face. The white fur darkened for an instant, and he laughed, the sound a little too high-pitched to his own ears. What was going on with him? His wing-claws felt oddly weak as he held the fruit out to her, and all of a sudden, he understood why she'd stared at him before. A little, maybe. He laughed that awkward laugh again, lifting the peach up to take another bite of it himself, then gave the other Bat a sidelong glance. There was a little bit of fruit clinging to her chin, and he wondered if he should tell her? No. Instead, he just reached out, lightly rubbing his wing-thumb across her chin, wiping off the sticky juice.

Then, he looked away again with extreme focus. Taking care to fully swallow the fruit before speaking, he decided that what they needed was conversation to try and lighten the mood. If it needed lightening? Wow, he was feeling really very confused, by this point... If nothing else, he needed something to distract her from his weird. "So, hey, do you live here? It's really nice! Not like the Court of Hearts," He grinned crookedly. "All we've got is roses, really! Not fruit trees, like this."