She wanders through the sun-baked rocks with little care for how the heat feels on her talons; her claws click against the stone in a steady, clack-clack rhythm, and her eyes stay glued to the ground—focused, searching for movement, little bugs or larvae to peck up and crunch between her beak.

But she's not oblivious. Occasionally, her eyes flick up to the sky, watching the way the vultures circle overhead, gauging if they'll come closer. Her (metaphorical) ears are pricked; with every little drip of water against rock, or shifting of stone, she tenses and bristles and her down puffs up against her skin.

Even at this young age, she's learned to be wary—every little sound could be the difference between seeing a monster coming and not knowing until it's too late.

It's this awareness, then, that makes her flinch when she hears a crack! ring through the canyon, echoing against its sheer stone walls.

That sound is familiar, to her. Awfully so.

Nerium curls in on herself, wings ruffling against her side as she remembers all too well what had happened with the last intelligent creature she met. Who stepped in with scales and claws to save her—who she turned away from, terrified.

She recognizes that cracking, that shattering of stone. And she doesn't like it.

Fear and shame pulls her to run, to get away; to leave this one alone, too.

Remorse pulls her to go closer—to help.

Her steps are slow, dragging—but, she turns, and starts walking towards the sound.

"Hello?" she whisper-shouts, waiting with tension in her chest for a response.

♥ I speak. ♥
♥ I think. ♥

Clearly, the newborn heard her. Nerium doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing—the sound of her paws tottering against the stone and her voice calling out in response certainly makes her wince.

She's so loud! What if something hears them? Nothing has come to attack them yet, but who knows what creature could crawl out of a crevice or descend from the sky if she keeps calling out like that!

"Ssh!" she calls back, concerned enough for both their safeties to come closer. "You gotta be quiet!" she warns, heart fluttering in her chest.

A part of her remembers how she had tried to warn away the pangolin from his own doom, from the shining fangs of a spider, but she squishes down the emotion as best she can. She didn't try hard enough. She left him.

She left him...

...she won't leave this one, even if a monster does descend on them. She promises herself that. "Don't be too loud, okay? There are monsters around here."

♥ I speak. ♥
♥ I think. ♥

"I—um..." The little harpy begins a sentence, but quickly trails off, head craning to look up at the bear before her.

For a moment, all her thoughts of monsters fade in favor of a kind of blind shock. She's... pretty?

She's never been called pretty before. Or even thought of the concept of being 'pretty'—vanity is foreign to the little bird, too caught up in just surviving. Too caught up in carrying the weight of survivor's guilt on her wings.

But as she looks into the bear's eyes and sees excitement shining in them, hears her exclamations, she feels something she's never felt before.

Pride.

I am pretty, she thinks to herself, fluffing her feathers in an unexpected surge of confidence.

She raises her head to look the bear in the eyes. "Me? I am special!" she says, a concept putting itself together in her head.

"I'm—" she begins, and for a moment, she falters, grasping for a word to describe it.

"...a... p-princess! Yeah!"

She's important and pretty and the thought makes her forget about things like monsters and leaving behind someone who was just trying to save her, for a little bit.

...the word 'princess' is a bit of an unfamiliar title to her, considering she just came up with it on the spot, so after a moment's thought she decides to give the bear a much more familiar name. "You can call me Nerium, though," she says. "...and you? Who are you?"

♥ I speak. ♥
♥ I think. ♥

The sound of her own title, repeated back at her, admiring and delighted—it makes her feel like she could take on the world. Powerful and respected; it makes her think of a version of her who's brave and strong and can do anything she wants, no matter who wanted to stop her. It makes her think of a version of her who could scare off the monsters in the sunlight; a bird who didn't run from spiders that danced and shimmered.

"Adina?" she repeats, testing the name on her beak. Adina. It's a pretty name, she has to admit; it sounds friendly and… nice. "I like that name."

She doesn't think she's ever held a conversation with someone before, let alone someone as nice-sounding as her before.

And she is very fuzzy, covered in soft brown fur that looks nothing like anything she's seen before, but… hm. She doesn't want to talk bad about her chosen title, especially since she likes it, but… "Fuzzy Adina" doesn't sound very… majestic.

"Do you want another title?" Nerium asks, stirring from her spot in the canyon to begin to walk around the bear, trying to figure out something that describes her just as well as 'fuzzy'. "How 'bout…"

She trails off, thinking it over. The first thing that comes to mind about her (besides all the fur, of course) is how big she is compared to her. She knows she's small compared to everything around her, the rock walls of the canyon that seem to stretch upwards forever and the big light at the ceiling that hurts to look at, but it's only up close with Adina that she really feels it.

What's a good title for something big like her? "...um… how about a knight?" she tells her. "Yeah! You can be a knight!"

♥ I speak. ♥
♥ I think. ♥