Meadowlark Prairie ojirojika

the meadow was almost barren. the grass had withered beneath the harsh light of summer; it felt brittle as the woman made her way, with a lingering note of smoke in the air. her purpose could have been to hunt, had she been fellahin, but it was not.
the open sky called to her and so satsu's attention was heavenward as she roamed, seeking something indeterminate within the gossamer of cloud above.

Truly, Lullaren didn’t know what exactly he was doing. He was a bard, but he didn’t feel like singing. A dashing rogue, but he was falling off the wagon. For the most part, he desired to lie down for a while, close his eyes, lay beneath the sun, and maybe turn into a puddle.

That’s where he was, at the moment at least. On his back, head tipped skyward, but limbs everywhere as he peered up above him. Not exactly a stunning picture of elegance, as some might look at him and expect, but well. Lulla wasn’t in the mood, truly, for elegance and fairytales.

overhead sat a series of fair-weather clouds. a trifecta of plump shapes, each heftier than the last, like a little family. they were almost pure white from what satsu could tell. surrounded by blue sky, she thought they resembled the piles of blossom cast-offs that would so oft collect within the onsen of her father's land.
so trained was she upon the sky that satsu failed to notice things more terrestrial around herself; only feeling for the crunch of brittle grasses until there was a bare patch of dirt and then, quite suddenly, a tangle of something warm and dark that ate her up like some kind of ink puddle.
she tripped rather blatantly against the stranger where he lay, crumbling against his chest, so that when the collision ended she could rest her chin against his breastbone and otherwise straddle him with all four of her own silver-cast limbs.
it all happened so fast that satsu didn't even have a moment to exclaim!

Luckily for Satsu, Lullaren had one of his limbs over his chest, so he wasn’t too winded by the woman quite literally tripping over his prone form.

Oof-!

Jewel tones fluttered open with a little wheezing sound, the bard lifting his head to peer at the wolf lying dead center to his breastbone. He flashed a little smile.

If you had wished to say hello, dearheart, you had only need to speak. Came the lilting, joking comment, as Lullaren shifted lightly to try and get comfortable in the warm spot he'd been occupying.

if it were possible for satsu to become beet-red, she would have. her cheeks were warm, her throat burned, she felt the flux of her very lungs as his words came; so much like pharaoh in that moment that she thought of his golden body instead of the stranger, which only made her feel worse.

hurrying and spider-like, satsu dismounted from the poor stranger. she was so flustered, and yet still trying to apologize with half-uttered declarations of gomen and hontōni gomen'nasai among others.

pacing for a minute, she shook out her thin furs and then stopped to crouch and bow her head, looking more like a relief of a wolf made of stone than a living thing. satashi wa sokode anata ni aimasendeshita— it all flowed effortlessly from across her tongue. satsu was unaware of her slip backwards in time to the language of her father, sensing only the immense awkwardness and shame of such a rude meeting.

Lullaren was prepared for the scramble back, that wild eyed look that he expected from awkward meetings such as the one they had just held. A bleat of involuntary laughter left him, quickly tamped down on as he rolled onto his stomach. He imagined he looked a bit like a bed tousled wreck with his fur everywhere, but that was alright, for now. He could fix himself up in a minute.

It is quite alright, chère souris, I have had far worse meetings than ours. Lullaren lifted up his body from the ground, slowly shaking out his coat, sending dirt and grass flying.

shame radiated from her in waves. the heat of embarrassment burned in her cheeks. she wanted to withdraw like a snail within a shell, curl up and forget that this entire moment had transpired.
even with the stranger doing his best to assuage her immensity of feeling, satsu could not let it go so readily
i, i ki o tsukete -- she shakes her head.

as he began to shake out his coat, satsu took a breath. she still looked to the dirt at his feet.
i have many apologies, she hastened to say, gomenesai, but he seemed unharmed and unbothered.
evidently the only thing that had been wounded with this event had been satsu's own pride.

when she finally did lift her gaze to him, she almost gasped; he looked just like crowfeather and the similarities shocked her out of the awkward stammering. i come from akashingo, the -- the mesa, nearby.

Lullaren’s head tilted curiously to the side, the young man’s tail giving a happy breeze from side to side to try and encourage the woman to settle.

Oh dear, he’d really made a mess of it by sprawling out in this field, hm?

Akashingo, you say? His head tilted towards said mesa, watching it curiously, before dual eyes found her again, flashing a charming smile.

I come from everywhere and nowhere at once, I’m afraid. He swept down into a courtly bow, every bit as dramatic as he’d always been.

Lullaren Dubois, Great Bard, charmed to meet you.

everywhere? nowhere?
he sounded more like a ghost the longer he spoke.

his name was odd, though no more odd than the few satsu had learned during her time in this place.
a.. bard? what is bard? she queried before she could help herself; it was not a word satsu knew, and anyway, she hoped that having him speak of himself would ease away the embarrassment she continued to feel.