Big Salmon Lake Icarus

" You don't want to be Madame Fish Stick?" he implored as his plume gave a little flick and slapped against her pale shoulder. They'd known each other since their baby blues both turned baby green and had been reared as companions; though their personalities were fundamentally different he felt closer to Caeli than most and chided her the same as he would his siblings. " I can be your partner, Lord Tartar Sauce."

Sage eyes glittered bemusedly as they slipped along the fine details of his friend's face. His tone was always ambiguous with her...it was difficult to pin down exactly what facet of his nature fueled  the little quips between them. Was it affection? Or benign flirtation? Ridir himself wasn't at all certain when it came to Caeli. He loved her, and admitted it without resentment, but the molecular level of his love was yet unknown.

His ears tipped back as his words fell into the silence of the territory between them. Caeli was a more fragile animal than him and he studied the mild laboring of her breath. Surely it had not been an easy task to follow him the hundreds of miles that separated them  from their home. "Are you tired?" he asked sincerely.