Pride was too busy munching the peach--tail flicking, the rest of it now lowering to the ground, where he chewed like a normal deer--to answer just then.

He heard silence, though: his gaze came up, peering from beneath pale brows, even as he ate. Was she trying to communicate-? He aimed to open a link to Vivilene, to offer an open path, but immediately realized that she was already speaking (in a sense) to Thalia. He remained quiet, then, just sort of mentally eavesdropping as he finished the peach, until she had finished.

(I'm here, too,) he mentally murmured, a quiet aside and a heads-up as to his accidental intrusion.

"You've done well with words," he said at last, warmly, "but I see your magic is stronger, now, too." Both bits of praise, given quietly and unobtrusively; by instinct he didn't want to draw too much attention to her prior muteness, and still near-muteness, but he offered the support nonetheless.

He was glad, too, to see her demeanor shifting, and the expression he offered up--as he finished nibbling the last of the peach from its pit--was kind. He didn't move to take the grapes, though, still licking peach juice from his chin.

It had stained his mouth a little pink-orange.

Pride was now, by all appearances bar diamonds all over him, Just A Deer. He stepped forward, each step careful, head held low and out, to pluck a couple grapes from Vivilene's hand or pouch and nibble at them. He remained silent, mind link left receptively open but his own mental 'words' absent as he let the pair work and discuss.

A glance at Thalia's failure was met with a brief mental note, and nothing more; he'd told her several times not to worry about backfiring magic, and that it happened to the best of them. Pale eyes flicked to watch the bauble formed, and handed over, but still he said and thought nothing in particular, jaws just chewing contentedly at the grapes.

He was so busy happily munching on grapes--tail flicking, ears moving this way and that, lost in oblivious contentment--that when Vivilene's question came through, he froze.

Grapes hung half-chewed in his mouth, ears and tail abruptly still.

His brain offered no response, just blankness, for a moment; by the time he blinked and tried to formulate a response (he had no idea what her entire magic was--he knew that she could speak mind-to-mind, as he could, but beyond that-?) Vivilene had moved ahead.

Pride blinked and took a step after her, resuming motion, chewing the grapes as his ears swept forward to place the full attention of all his senses on her magic.

Grapes were swallowed.

"Ahhh, that is a good magic," he approved. "Light in dark places, but be careful; I've known those wisps to lead us to the Masked Merchant. He is not particularly good for our survival prospects," the white stag added dourly. "He is the one who runs the Trials. So if your wisp ever appears on its own and flies away, be careful about following it. It will not be safe."

Like, lured into a moving, breathing black cave full of pits unsafe. Like, hallucinations and black water full of corpses unsafe.

Luckily, Pride had closed the mental link, and no evidence for the reason for his sudden shudder flashed through to either 'child.'

Of course, he wasn't holding that link open any longer. He wasn't thinking to, that assumption that Vivilene's magic simply wouldn't fail preventing it. Instead he just kind of stood there, half-hoping for more food to magically appear and be handed his way-...

Ahh.

Nodding, and silence.

He blinked a little, and looked to Thalia, head coming up--but she was smiling broadly, brightly, and so Pride didn't interfere.

The stag felt a little foolish, for a moment, struggling to grasp for some conversational topic or other that could be safely and politely breached, and finding... nothing. What could he ask about-? He was in touch, if vaguely, with family; he had already asked how she herself was.

And most of the goings-on in the caves were, well.

Grim.

Ahh, but one wasn't. "I've another new daughter, actually. Thalia's younger sister, I suppose-? Half, at least, ah--Jampa, if you see her around. She looks rather like me, a little birdlike--and I think she could do with a friend," he added. It wasn't said as if Jampa were alone--she wasn't--but that Pride genuinely thought she could benefit from having Vivilene around.

He didn't mention Jampa's other parent. That was something that--for her sake and for Tenzin's--he was keeping quiet, for now. "If you meet her, maybe you might get along."