Moonspear your protector

Deciding that now might be a good time to try and plant the seeds of attraction in the young Frostfur's mind, Alya let her eyes go soft and gleaming, like Lyra's when she looked into the eyes of a really cute boy. (Alya herself had a similar look, but it had been called 'manic' more often than soft, and 'calculating' more often than gleaming.) "Thank you, Rannoch," she said, her voice hardly more than a breath of air. She let her expression fall, grow troubled and 'earnest' all at once. "I - it didn't feel right to have that distance between us for me, either," she said, as though admitting to some profound secret.

Her eyes fell down to her paws, and then fluttered back toward his face, the way Lyra's did when she was trying to figure out what to say. But Alya already knew the perfect words. "You're a good man, Rannoch. I hope, one day... Well, I hope I can find someone like you."

She tucked her ears back, as if embarrassed by these words. "I should go," she said with a 'nervous' giggle, keeping her eyes pinned bashfully to the ground. "Thanks for talking to me. You've really helped me to feel better about all this."