Overture Downs golyat

Stigmata was wrong in many assumptions he had made about Nunataq, but he had hit a bullseye about one: lack of self-preservation instinct. Nearly all her life she had been cooped up in the same hen-house, surrounded by only familiar faces and rarely meeting people, who did not belong to the immediate circle of the family. She had some natural shyness and wariness about people she did not know too well, but usually curiosity won over the rational reasoning that adult would have had. She did not realize that not all people in this world wanted to quench her interest, that they could and would mind her antics and in the end... that there were people, who could hurt her worse than the pounce she had just experienced, or someone sitting on her that would happen in near future.

Her inability to comprehend language and speak was both a gift and a curse for her. She was able to read people in different ways, but at the same time a lot of world and wisdom from the verbal world was unavailable to her. How much easier it would be for Indra and Laurel to teach her hunting, good manners and warn her, were she just able to understand them! And no one had been creative enough to translate these texts in a way she could use. In a vast library of books they were as much useful to her as light to a blind person. Which left her to learning and discovering the world to herself. The more difficult and dangerous way, because she would have to make all the mistakes and learn from that experience only.

Were it also not for her stuborness and independent mind that did not let her follow other people blindly, but demanded to make it's own decisions and draw it's own conclusions, her learning process would be easier. As it was - she picked up, what Stigmata was pointing at, half-turned, but still waited. You first, man. She seemed to be waiting for an acknowledgement that she had read him the correct way. And also because the child still inside her did not feel comfortable going ahead of an adult, preferring for him to take all of the responsibility and have her tailing behind him.