Otatso Wetlands ii. pain and guilt

if it had been any other, perhaps she would have become frightened and met them with the frenzied clacking of her ivories despite her desire for makeshift camaraderie. 

but instead the raven's gaze set first upon the expressive neptune eyes that sat cartoonishly large in her slim skull, then flickered up to her long and tapered ears.  there was something wild about this stranger, too.  she could hear it in the strained vocalizations that she offered, in the sweeping motions of her limbs.

it eased her.  her mismatched gaze bore into coelacanth for a moment before offering a weary and suppliant whine in return, craning her head down to the snow.