Stavanger Bay Smoking Embers

She had set out to find him and he her. A classic mix-up, but one that didn't possess the same lighthearted connotation as most. Her thoughts streamed together as she spoke to him, he mistook the name-drop as another article, but her message was clear. He'd left her.

"I know" he acknowledged looking down to the ground ashamed before returning her gaze. He had said he'd return. Hoped she would be there when he inevitably did later in the day, but given her circumstances, it wasn't fair to have expected her to stay on her own. "Something... came over me. It's not a worthy excuse for my actions but... I am sorry... however heinous that sounds... It wasn't you..." It hadn't been her he had ran from, not directly in any case, but how was he to properly explain that to her when he couldn't for himself?

Her remarks returned to the sheepish companion at his side, who in turn had her own questions about Andr's relation to the other. The two had endured such similar backgrounds but had blossomed from it into starkly different flowers. At a glance, they should have needed equal care, but Andr's scales were unconsciously tipped.

He directed his attention to the latter question first. "Yes. Fleurette is our friend..." he said to her. The word friend was metaphorical, chosen from the options of friend or foe, in an attempt to reassure the bird who to his knowledge was seeing Fleaurette for the first time. But Andr's former actions had not been what they should have been to a friend. 

Looking to Fleaurette he continued. "Fleurette this is..." it pained him to remember how he did not have a name for her, how close he had been to uncovering one for her the last time they had been together. "This is a friend of mine. I too found her washed ashore at the bay last year. I had been caring for her..." should he have called it that? Had he really been much help to her? "We traveled together for a time before... before we got... separated" Separated was the only word he could think of. Had she gotten lost? Had he upset her into leaving? He did not know. 

His glance lingered back over his shoulder, looking at the burn marks trailing through bits of her pelt. "We survived a fire. One that burned these very trees... It wasn't long after that..."