Log: Better Living with Big Foot
RL: February 4 and 6, 2008.
VR: Day 6, month 3, Turn 15, of the Interval. It is a spring evening.
Leova introduces Louvaen to Big Foot. Who knew runners could be the next Prozac?
Warning: Issues Crossing.
Stables
The stable is divided into two parts. The rear half is floored with straw, and divided into ample stalls for the housing of the livestock of the hold, as well as some reserved for the mounts of visitors. To the front of the building, the ground is kept swept fairly clean and the mounts and wagons of traders and other visitors are often seen here.
A horse whinnies in a stall at the back of the stable.
Contents:
Prancer
Hen
Aster
After a chill Tillek evening that's had only the most remote introduction to spring, the stables are pure warmth and, to those accustomed to it, quiet warmth. The runners within the stalls shift from foot to foot, but it's a regular sound, regular as the underlying smells of themselves and straw and tack oil. Occasionally one whinnies, and is answered by neighbors down the aisle, but mostly... that quiet. No raucous drinkers slug back ales here. Its residents are prone to dribble the water that they do drink down their hairy equine chins, however, and don't have the good grace to clean up after their messes either. But then, they don't have to. They have servants for that. One of whom is leaning against the heavily gravid mare she attends, brushing the chestnut hide until it gleams, humming softly under her breath to calm the restless, aching beast.
Quiet as it is, it is perhaps unlikely that the steps crossing the courtyard outside can be heard. But there are steps, boot heels rapping quickly across the cobble stones and then a pause - followed by a slower approach to the stables. And then, there is Louvaen. The young man slips in the doors, his gaze casting about to take in the quiet space. His body uncoils in the warmth, shoulders held tense against the cold now relaxing as his hands come out of his pockets. After holding at the door a moment, he moves uncertainly back towards the stalls, taking the time to gaze at the fuzzy occupants as he moves past.
None of the fuzzy occupants demand anything of Louvaen, really. A gelding sticks his soft nose out to sniff at the newcomer, ears forward but eyes lazy: he might welcome a scratch, but he might be just as happy to be walked by. Another, younger, keeps his wide haunches to the mouth of the stall and flicks his tail a few times before returning to deeper sleep. Nobody's soliciting samples of ale, nobody's needing to be impressed. Including Leova, who's working in her shirtsleeves if something so regular and reassuring can be called work, her jacket slung on the hook outside of her mare's door, her expression drowsy and unusually open.
Louvaen does indeed reach a hand out towards the gelding as he walks by, fingertips scritching briefly at the broad, flat cheek of the runner. But it is the jacket that finally catches his attention, drawing him towards the stall door by which it is hooked. "Good evening," he calls softly as he approaches so as not to startle. There is a hint of a question in his voice: perhaps he worries that despite the jacket he is only addressing the mare. But he draws next to the stall a smile touches on his lips as he notes the occupant. "Ah. Leova," he notes at finding the stable hand.
The mare shifts at that, hindquarters flexing beneath her sleek, stretched hide. Across her, Leova is slow to look up and then realize and then finally turn, pushing hair out of her face to better see Louvaen and only getting runner hair on her forehead instead. "You did come." Her voice is quiet as the humming had been, quiet as her eyes. "Roads thawed?"
Louvaen sets the heels of his hands against the stall door, leaning forward on them and smiling in at Leova. Her question raises his shoulders in a shrug. "It will be some time yet until the caravans are ready to roll, I think," he says without concern. "How have you been?" He questions with more enthusiasm. "This is your mare? She looks... shiny and round."
Leova eases a little closer to the mare, a possessive hand slipping up the runner's neck to scratch beneath the long brown mane. The runner is tall as well as round: the woman, not so much. "We've been well," she says. "More me than her... still a month to go. Over a month, probably. ...Big Foot? Meet Louvaen. Louvaen, Big Foot." The mare rolls one eye his way, cocking her ear; the woman's own look just dares him to make something of the name.
Louvaen's brows do go up at the mare's name. "Pleased to meet you, Big Foot," he says evenly. Leaning his chest on the back of his hands, he peers forward to catch a glimpse of the mare's feathered feet. "Though I must say," he slides his playful gaze back to Leova, "those feet all look rather large. Better to support mom and baby, I suppose?" He shifts his weight back again, taking in the mare as a whole. "Will she get much bigger in her last month?"
His even tone leads to Leova's chin lowering, a sort of half nod, and at the rest she even smiles. "Even when she was a filly," she says. "Just a little wobbledy-legged filly, they say, and the foals she throws have been like that too. Solid hooves, too. My master does well with the breeding, keeping them healthy...." Catching herself running on, she bites her lip, giving Louvaen a rueful glance, and goes back to his actual question. "So, yes. Good for balance now too. And yes, she'll get bigger. You use runners for your wagons?"
Louvaen listens raptly, despite the rambling, his smile brightening at the thought of the large mare being a leggy filly. At her question he shakes his head, one of his hands coming up to rub the back of his neck. "I don't have any wagons - I don't travel much by caravan, really." His smile dims a bit as he speaks, and there's the barest shadow of something sad and tired about the edges of his expression. "Does... your master? ... sell many of his runners to caravan teams?" The hand comes away from his neck and reaches out cautiously to try and pet Big Foot.
Leova doesn't say or really do anything at first, calm hands on the the mare who calms them, but then she slides a palm down Big Foot's back in soft, staggered strokes towards the mare's rump where Louvaen can reach. There, she explains by example: along where the bone rises up to the joint. That itchy, vulnerable spot. She moves her hand out of the way, resting it a little higher up the mare's spine. "Master," she agrees. "Stablemaster. Sometimes he does. There's a Herder on the Riding that he works closely with... Why don't you? By caravan. Or however," her voice quiet even in question, quiet as the mare.
Following Leova's lead, Louvaen reaches out and runs his hand over the mare's well-groomed coat. His fingers are at first tentative, but then offer more firm scratches to that itchy spot. He nods as he listens to her talk about the runners, and then is silent awhile before addressing her question. Just staring at Big Foot, at the grooves his fingers make in her fur as they arch and straighten. "I only took the job, on the trade ship, a few turns ago," is what he finally says. "And I began working with Dolpho even more recently. I suppose I may try to join a caravan in the future," his tone indicating that the idea is turning over in his mind for consideration.
The mare sighs, broadening her stance, more loose-hipped now. Leova's palm has come to a stop on the forward curve of the mare's back, just behind her withers, even as Big Foot lets her head lower just a little bit more. Winter is turning to spring even if outside it's hard to tell, and there are a few loose hairs clinging to her fingers even after the currying she'd been working on, a few more about Louvaen's. He hasn't seemed to be able to keep his hands clean around her. But this is good, Big Foot changing with the seasons, getting freed of the old, glossy and plush and healthy even if it's sore, sometimes. "You have so many choices," Leova says at last. "And before..." It's not yet a question, not from her.
Louvaen doesn't seem overly concerned with dirty hands this evening. It seems he's finding that petting the runner is soothing enough to overlook the fur and dander accumulating up on his fingers. His smile is soft across his features as he watches the mare shift her weight. "Not -so- many," Louvaen says distractedly. "I couldn't very well raise runners," his tone finally lightens, his eyes finally shifting to settle on Leova again. "Do you feel you have too few choices?" is asked with gentle curiosity.
Her eyes slide away from his, just a glimpse of whites around amber irises before the shadows take them. Still, she doesn't move away, the wide-bodied runner between them. Big Foot's breathing has slowed further, her ears sloped back to listen in an increasingly vague sort of way. "I'm lucky to be here," Leova gives him in all honesty. A little later, "That's not the sort of question I ask."
"Therefore not the sort you answer," Louvaen concludes, his curious gaze holding on the young woman a moment more before relenting. His hand gives a final scritch to the mare, pets the fur smooth, and then returns to fold over his other arm across the top of the stall door. "I'm sorry. I do not wish to pry." There's a slightly audible intake of breath, as if he may add something else, but in the end he falls silent.
She nearly doesn't ask. At first she has only a small shrug for him, one that barely moves where her knot would have been, if it weren't hanging elsewhere on the hook. Perhaps it's that he's gone a little away, or something about his apology. Her fingers trail through the coarse mane, and Leova sighs, and peers just a little askance at him around the unkempt curtain of her hair. "What. What were you going to say, Louvaen."
Louvaen is now careful in meeting even her sideways look, holding the gaze a moment before his eyes bounce away to watch her fingers in Big Foot's mane. "Nothing," is his first response, his fingers rolling up from where they were folded on his elbow. "Just. I'm interested in your perspective." Stated simply enough.
"On what." Leova takes a deeper breath, her fingers curled. His trick worked: she doesn't shy away, quite the contrary, but at a flick of tufted brown ear she shapes her voice to be quieter, calmer, more like earlier. "On what, Louvaen?" Big Foot's ears relax a little more, and she says to him and to the mare, "It's all right."
Louvaen blinks, his head tipping to the side. "On life." His own voice is pitched carefully calm, most likely due to his observance of Leova keeping the mare soothed. "You've a sort of honesty about you, Leova." The young man continues, less certain of his words then seems typical for him. Shrugging, his gaze slides away to scan over the other equine residents, lingering on the geldings that he passed on his way in. Their heads now hang low as they doze off for the night.
Leova's nose wrinkles before he gets very far, but she doesn't complain, instead focusing on getting out a little tangle in Big Foot's mane. It's being stubborn, though, and although she keeps trying with not a little stubbornness herself, eventually it threatens to wake the mare for a little mutually assured disruption. So she stops. And puts her hands behind her, even, so they won't be so tempted to keep at it regardless. She says while he's looking away, but with a little humor feathered into her voice, "Life. Very specific of you, hm?" She doesn't thank him for the rest.
"Mmhm." The smile is clear in profile, despite his eyes still being turned towards the other stalls. "You now have an idea, I think, of why I was not sure the sentiment ought to be stated." If humor feathers into her voice, it wings steadily in Louvaen's. Sliding his gaze back to Leova, the young man shifts his arm so that he can prop his chin on his knuckles. "I'm not keeping you from something, am I?" he asks with some concern as he notices her hands have left the mare.
"So, it's a matter of whether you survive your curiosity," Leova guesses. "Or I do." She gives him a sideways look, her voice still low, her hands still tucked behind her. Big Foot breathes on, deeply, close to a snore. "And yes, you are. But it might be enough of a story to make up for writing a few letters and polishing my boots," though she plays at letting herself sound doubtful, for the sake of his earlier smile.
Louvaen's mouth turns to a wryer twist at her phrasing. "Well," he breaths in soft amusement at the first, but doesn't otherwise protest. "It might be?" is repeated as his eyebrows loft. He does lift his arms from the stall door, however, and take a step back so that he's not blocking Leova in. "What, my visiting you?" There's a tentative note of mock affront playing along in his voice, and an attempt made to not wake Big Foot. "Granted, polishing boots isn't the most captivating of endeavors."
"Something like that." Leova crouches low to run her fingers through the clean straw, well away from those huge hooves. "If you're a renegade," and the glowlight momentarily catches her eyes as she looks up, "And if it's like in the story, if you tell me you'll have to kill me... you have my permission not to tell me." Only the corner of her smile can be glimpsed as she moves away and around the mare with the ease of practice, ducking under the swollen belly at one point. Finally coming up with a currycomb that had been sitting on a slat, "Perhaps polishing isn't exciting. But it can make you focus."
Louvaen starts to laugh at the notion of being a renegade, the breath escaping his throat before he remembers the runners and quiets abruptly. His eyes are mere slits due to the depth of his smile. "I'll keep that in mind," he manages to get out levelly after a few moments. Watching her move about the stall, his expression is composed back to a more moderate smirk. "Ah. Taking focus over excitement," he notes and nods his head, as if internalizing a novel concept. "And what does that focus yield?"
Leova nearly drops the currycomb because of that near-laugh, too, and darts a dark look at Louvaen, cocking her arm as if to throw before just reaching outside the stall and hanging the comb on its hook. When things have settled to her satisfaction, she whispers with some frustration, "You make it sound so distant. Like it's something you could write down on a hide. And then you grin."
Louvaen draws a few steps back at that dark look and the threat of thrown curry comb. Now worry is beginning to creep over his features, though it has yet to fully displace a smile that's become precarious. The distance he has scooted back has him leaning forward slightly in order to fully catch her whisper, his hands tucking across his chest. "Yes," he says softly, as her words rock him back on his heels. The smile never leaves, but the warmth has gone from his features, his gaze become unseeing. "I'm not focused. Not grounded, nor practical." The words come as if from another conversation, dropping him into a brief silence afterwards. With a blink, his eyes refocus on Leova. "I apologize, for bothering you. I won't keep you from your letters." With that he inclines his head in a leave-taking bow, his weight shifting in order to move towards the door.
"Louvaen!" It's pure distress, not loud, Leova's face frozen on a gasp. The rest of her is frozen too. It's only that hat tone, that /apology/, that cracks it and sends her, faster, for the stall door. Even now she's careful to latch it again behind her, careful to keep her footsteps just barely more steady than the scramble that might waken sleeping runners, but that carefulness may make her too late.
The soft call just slows Louvaen's retreat, but the sound of footsteps brings him to a halt. A hand, the un-Big Foot-haired one, comes up to scrub at his face. Maybe it's just his palm dragging across his nose as he takes a breath in, but there is a definite sound of a sniffle. He doesn't turn around. He just stands there, shoulders tight and chin slightly dropped. A muffled "yes?" is said through his hand.
Which means that Leova tries to circle around him, because she isn't going to crowd further behind. Looking up, eyes large and round in her weathered face, she forgets patience for his dignity in sheer worry. "I'm sorry. /I'm/ sorry. I didn't say you weren't... I didn't mean..." But not meaning isn't ever good enough, is it? "Don't go like that," quieter now.
Louvaen's chin tips up as Leova circles around him, his hand still bridged over his eyes. He is quiet, chest lifting in deep even breaths as he listens. Finally, his head takes a few slow shakes and he drops his hand back to his side. One last deep breath brings his gaze down to Leova's wide eyes. "It hasn't been the best of days." There's a bit of extra color in his face, weariness dragging at the shadow of his smile. "I am glad that I got to meet Big Foot," warmth breathes back into his voice, the corners of his mouth ticking up a little more solidly. "It was nice to hear you speak about her."
Leova's brows have come together with her attempt to read him, pinching above her nose. A few runner hairs have drifted down from where she rubbed her forehead seemingly so long ago, one lingering on her nose, which twitches but she hasn't a tail with which to swat it away. "She is such a good mare." Leova rubs at her forehead again. It doesn't help matters; her mouth has tightened back up after the mention of the mare's brief respite. "You looked so much happier before. Even when I got to thinking you might be... making fun... I wish I hadn't taken that away." Again.
Louvaen eyes shift slightly as they follow the movement of the runner's hairs and note Leova's expressions, even as she reads his own. He shakes his head again. "You didn't take anything," he disagrees. "I am sorry I made you feel that I might have been making fun of you." He pauses, taking a breath and dropping his gaze to hands that come together to fiddle before him. "What you say often surprises me. In a good way. And I rather enjoy novelty." Chin still lowered, Louvaen slides a look back up to Leova, smile growing crookedly. "But I am afraid I don't have a very good read on your humor."
She doesn't relax: it's more a shift of tension, looser about her arms, but her mouth pressed white. Eventually she exhales, and watches his hands more than his face until she can feel her eyes on her. It's as though he's different now, smiling again, but less polished. Less slick. More... something. Enough so that Leova admits, "Neither do I. About yours, I mean." She shivers suddenly, the draft from the closed door. "I wouldn't have thought anything I could say could strike you. Like that."
Nodding at her confession, Louvaen quiets his hands and folds them together, letting them drop against his legs. Her shiver brings a look of concern to his features. He shifts uncertainly and glances over her shoulder to the drafty doors. "Now I've gone and drawn you away from your jacket," he murmurs under his breath. Looking back to Leova, he continues in a clearer tone. "But you do say these clever, striking things. They make me wonder if such dry and teasing thoughts are running under the surface all the time." He pauses, eyes squinting in a touch in his attempt to understand. "But other times I feel sure that you are truly, straightforwardly serious. In any case, you are quite unique from those in my acquaintance. And - hopefully not freezing yourself standing here in the aisle."
Leova's color rises; she folds her arms over herself, tightly, fingers wrinkling the stained white fabric of her sleeves. She can't look at him for long; instead, to the geldings. Her mare, hers to take care of at least, beyond. Back. Away. "You say such things," she says on a fractured laugh. "Such words. I... don't know what to /do/ with them," and that more strongly before her tone recedes again and steadies there, just as her gaze has. "No, though. I won't freeze. Though she does need fresh water before I go. You'll be safe? On the stones. There was ice, last night."
Louvaen, this time, does not take his gaze from Leova despite her obvious discomfort. Her laughter causes a slight wince of his brows, the words that follow bringing a deeper look to his eye. Apology. Concern. But he does not offer any more words of that sort for her to deal with this night. As she promises not to freeze, his warm smile returns to his features and he nods. "I'll be careful," he gives his own promise in answer to her concern about the ice. "Good night, Leova." Bowing his head once more, this time in better spirits, he takes his leave from the warm stables and moves out into the chill night.
When he has gone, and when she has checked on Big Foot and watered her and cleaned up the combs, Leova slips outside without her jacket. She stands there in the cold, not looking up at the moons or anywhere really, letting the shivers rise up her. Cold. Colder. She breathes it in, holds it in her lungs. Again. Longer. When she's finally where she needs to be, she goes inside to try to sleep: not in her little bed in the dormitory, but the littler cot in the back of the stables, where she can hear the runners breathe.
VR: Day 6, month 3, Turn 15, of the Interval. It is a spring evening.
Leova introduces Louvaen to Big Foot. Who knew runners could be the next Prozac?
Warning: Issues Crossing.
Stables
The stable is divided into two parts. The rear half is floored with straw, and divided into ample stalls for the housing of the livestock of the hold, as well as some reserved for the mounts of visitors. To the front of the building, the ground is kept swept fairly clean and the mounts and wagons of traders and other visitors are often seen here.
A horse whinnies in a stall at the back of the stable.
Contents:
Prancer
Hen
Aster
After a chill Tillek evening that's had only the most remote introduction to spring, the stables are pure warmth and, to those accustomed to it, quiet warmth. The runners within the stalls shift from foot to foot, but it's a regular sound, regular as the underlying smells of themselves and straw and tack oil. Occasionally one whinnies, and is answered by neighbors down the aisle, but mostly... that quiet. No raucous drinkers slug back ales here. Its residents are prone to dribble the water that they do drink down their hairy equine chins, however, and don't have the good grace to clean up after their messes either. But then, they don't have to. They have servants for that. One of whom is leaning against the heavily gravid mare she attends, brushing the chestnut hide until it gleams, humming softly under her breath to calm the restless, aching beast.
Quiet as it is, it is perhaps unlikely that the steps crossing the courtyard outside can be heard. But there are steps, boot heels rapping quickly across the cobble stones and then a pause - followed by a slower approach to the stables. And then, there is Louvaen. The young man slips in the doors, his gaze casting about to take in the quiet space. His body uncoils in the warmth, shoulders held tense against the cold now relaxing as his hands come out of his pockets. After holding at the door a moment, he moves uncertainly back towards the stalls, taking the time to gaze at the fuzzy occupants as he moves past.
None of the fuzzy occupants demand anything of Louvaen, really. A gelding sticks his soft nose out to sniff at the newcomer, ears forward but eyes lazy: he might welcome a scratch, but he might be just as happy to be walked by. Another, younger, keeps his wide haunches to the mouth of the stall and flicks his tail a few times before returning to deeper sleep. Nobody's soliciting samples of ale, nobody's needing to be impressed. Including Leova, who's working in her shirtsleeves if something so regular and reassuring can be called work, her jacket slung on the hook outside of her mare's door, her expression drowsy and unusually open.
Louvaen does indeed reach a hand out towards the gelding as he walks by, fingertips scritching briefly at the broad, flat cheek of the runner. But it is the jacket that finally catches his attention, drawing him towards the stall door by which it is hooked. "Good evening," he calls softly as he approaches so as not to startle. There is a hint of a question in his voice: perhaps he worries that despite the jacket he is only addressing the mare. But he draws next to the stall a smile touches on his lips as he notes the occupant. "Ah. Leova," he notes at finding the stable hand.
The mare shifts at that, hindquarters flexing beneath her sleek, stretched hide. Across her, Leova is slow to look up and then realize and then finally turn, pushing hair out of her face to better see Louvaen and only getting runner hair on her forehead instead. "You did come." Her voice is quiet as the humming had been, quiet as her eyes. "Roads thawed?"
Louvaen sets the heels of his hands against the stall door, leaning forward on them and smiling in at Leova. Her question raises his shoulders in a shrug. "It will be some time yet until the caravans are ready to roll, I think," he says without concern. "How have you been?" He questions with more enthusiasm. "This is your mare? She looks... shiny and round."
Leova eases a little closer to the mare, a possessive hand slipping up the runner's neck to scratch beneath the long brown mane. The runner is tall as well as round: the woman, not so much. "We've been well," she says. "More me than her... still a month to go. Over a month, probably. ...Big Foot? Meet Louvaen. Louvaen, Big Foot." The mare rolls one eye his way, cocking her ear; the woman's own look just dares him to make something of the name.
Louvaen's brows do go up at the mare's name. "Pleased to meet you, Big Foot," he says evenly. Leaning his chest on the back of his hands, he peers forward to catch a glimpse of the mare's feathered feet. "Though I must say," he slides his playful gaze back to Leova, "those feet all look rather large. Better to support mom and baby, I suppose?" He shifts his weight back again, taking in the mare as a whole. "Will she get much bigger in her last month?"
His even tone leads to Leova's chin lowering, a sort of half nod, and at the rest she even smiles. "Even when she was a filly," she says. "Just a little wobbledy-legged filly, they say, and the foals she throws have been like that too. Solid hooves, too. My master does well with the breeding, keeping them healthy...." Catching herself running on, she bites her lip, giving Louvaen a rueful glance, and goes back to his actual question. "So, yes. Good for balance now too. And yes, she'll get bigger. You use runners for your wagons?"
Louvaen listens raptly, despite the rambling, his smile brightening at the thought of the large mare being a leggy filly. At her question he shakes his head, one of his hands coming up to rub the back of his neck. "I don't have any wagons - I don't travel much by caravan, really." His smile dims a bit as he speaks, and there's the barest shadow of something sad and tired about the edges of his expression. "Does... your master? ... sell many of his runners to caravan teams?" The hand comes away from his neck and reaches out cautiously to try and pet Big Foot.
Leova doesn't say or really do anything at first, calm hands on the the mare who calms them, but then she slides a palm down Big Foot's back in soft, staggered strokes towards the mare's rump where Louvaen can reach. There, she explains by example: along where the bone rises up to the joint. That itchy, vulnerable spot. She moves her hand out of the way, resting it a little higher up the mare's spine. "Master," she agrees. "Stablemaster. Sometimes he does. There's a Herder on the Riding that he works closely with... Why don't you? By caravan. Or however," her voice quiet even in question, quiet as the mare.
Following Leova's lead, Louvaen reaches out and runs his hand over the mare's well-groomed coat. His fingers are at first tentative, but then offer more firm scratches to that itchy spot. He nods as he listens to her talk about the runners, and then is silent awhile before addressing her question. Just staring at Big Foot, at the grooves his fingers make in her fur as they arch and straighten. "I only took the job, on the trade ship, a few turns ago," is what he finally says. "And I began working with Dolpho even more recently. I suppose I may try to join a caravan in the future," his tone indicating that the idea is turning over in his mind for consideration.
The mare sighs, broadening her stance, more loose-hipped now. Leova's palm has come to a stop on the forward curve of the mare's back, just behind her withers, even as Big Foot lets her head lower just a little bit more. Winter is turning to spring even if outside it's hard to tell, and there are a few loose hairs clinging to her fingers even after the currying she'd been working on, a few more about Louvaen's. He hasn't seemed to be able to keep his hands clean around her. But this is good, Big Foot changing with the seasons, getting freed of the old, glossy and plush and healthy even if it's sore, sometimes. "You have so many choices," Leova says at last. "And before..." It's not yet a question, not from her.
Louvaen doesn't seem overly concerned with dirty hands this evening. It seems he's finding that petting the runner is soothing enough to overlook the fur and dander accumulating up on his fingers. His smile is soft across his features as he watches the mare shift her weight. "Not -so- many," Louvaen says distractedly. "I couldn't very well raise runners," his tone finally lightens, his eyes finally shifting to settle on Leova again. "Do you feel you have too few choices?" is asked with gentle curiosity.
Her eyes slide away from his, just a glimpse of whites around amber irises before the shadows take them. Still, she doesn't move away, the wide-bodied runner between them. Big Foot's breathing has slowed further, her ears sloped back to listen in an increasingly vague sort of way. "I'm lucky to be here," Leova gives him in all honesty. A little later, "That's not the sort of question I ask."
"Therefore not the sort you answer," Louvaen concludes, his curious gaze holding on the young woman a moment more before relenting. His hand gives a final scritch to the mare, pets the fur smooth, and then returns to fold over his other arm across the top of the stall door. "I'm sorry. I do not wish to pry." There's a slightly audible intake of breath, as if he may add something else, but in the end he falls silent.
She nearly doesn't ask. At first she has only a small shrug for him, one that barely moves where her knot would have been, if it weren't hanging elsewhere on the hook. Perhaps it's that he's gone a little away, or something about his apology. Her fingers trail through the coarse mane, and Leova sighs, and peers just a little askance at him around the unkempt curtain of her hair. "What. What were you going to say, Louvaen."
Louvaen is now careful in meeting even her sideways look, holding the gaze a moment before his eyes bounce away to watch her fingers in Big Foot's mane. "Nothing," is his first response, his fingers rolling up from where they were folded on his elbow. "Just. I'm interested in your perspective." Stated simply enough.
"On what." Leova takes a deeper breath, her fingers curled. His trick worked: she doesn't shy away, quite the contrary, but at a flick of tufted brown ear she shapes her voice to be quieter, calmer, more like earlier. "On what, Louvaen?" Big Foot's ears relax a little more, and she says to him and to the mare, "It's all right."
Louvaen blinks, his head tipping to the side. "On life." His own voice is pitched carefully calm, most likely due to his observance of Leova keeping the mare soothed. "You've a sort of honesty about you, Leova." The young man continues, less certain of his words then seems typical for him. Shrugging, his gaze slides away to scan over the other equine residents, lingering on the geldings that he passed on his way in. Their heads now hang low as they doze off for the night.
Leova's nose wrinkles before he gets very far, but she doesn't complain, instead focusing on getting out a little tangle in Big Foot's mane. It's being stubborn, though, and although she keeps trying with not a little stubbornness herself, eventually it threatens to wake the mare for a little mutually assured disruption. So she stops. And puts her hands behind her, even, so they won't be so tempted to keep at it regardless. She says while he's looking away, but with a little humor feathered into her voice, "Life. Very specific of you, hm?" She doesn't thank him for the rest.
"Mmhm." The smile is clear in profile, despite his eyes still being turned towards the other stalls. "You now have an idea, I think, of why I was not sure the sentiment ought to be stated." If humor feathers into her voice, it wings steadily in Louvaen's. Sliding his gaze back to Leova, the young man shifts his arm so that he can prop his chin on his knuckles. "I'm not keeping you from something, am I?" he asks with some concern as he notices her hands have left the mare.
"So, it's a matter of whether you survive your curiosity," Leova guesses. "Or I do." She gives him a sideways look, her voice still low, her hands still tucked behind her. Big Foot breathes on, deeply, close to a snore. "And yes, you are. But it might be enough of a story to make up for writing a few letters and polishing my boots," though she plays at letting herself sound doubtful, for the sake of his earlier smile.
Louvaen's mouth turns to a wryer twist at her phrasing. "Well," he breaths in soft amusement at the first, but doesn't otherwise protest. "It might be?" is repeated as his eyebrows loft. He does lift his arms from the stall door, however, and take a step back so that he's not blocking Leova in. "What, my visiting you?" There's a tentative note of mock affront playing along in his voice, and an attempt made to not wake Big Foot. "Granted, polishing boots isn't the most captivating of endeavors."
"Something like that." Leova crouches low to run her fingers through the clean straw, well away from those huge hooves. "If you're a renegade," and the glowlight momentarily catches her eyes as she looks up, "And if it's like in the story, if you tell me you'll have to kill me... you have my permission not to tell me." Only the corner of her smile can be glimpsed as she moves away and around the mare with the ease of practice, ducking under the swollen belly at one point. Finally coming up with a currycomb that had been sitting on a slat, "Perhaps polishing isn't exciting. But it can make you focus."
Louvaen starts to laugh at the notion of being a renegade, the breath escaping his throat before he remembers the runners and quiets abruptly. His eyes are mere slits due to the depth of his smile. "I'll keep that in mind," he manages to get out levelly after a few moments. Watching her move about the stall, his expression is composed back to a more moderate smirk. "Ah. Taking focus over excitement," he notes and nods his head, as if internalizing a novel concept. "And what does that focus yield?"
Leova nearly drops the currycomb because of that near-laugh, too, and darts a dark look at Louvaen, cocking her arm as if to throw before just reaching outside the stall and hanging the comb on its hook. When things have settled to her satisfaction, she whispers with some frustration, "You make it sound so distant. Like it's something you could write down on a hide. And then you grin."
Louvaen draws a few steps back at that dark look and the threat of thrown curry comb. Now worry is beginning to creep over his features, though it has yet to fully displace a smile that's become precarious. The distance he has scooted back has him leaning forward slightly in order to fully catch her whisper, his hands tucking across his chest. "Yes," he says softly, as her words rock him back on his heels. The smile never leaves, but the warmth has gone from his features, his gaze become unseeing. "I'm not focused. Not grounded, nor practical." The words come as if from another conversation, dropping him into a brief silence afterwards. With a blink, his eyes refocus on Leova. "I apologize, for bothering you. I won't keep you from your letters." With that he inclines his head in a leave-taking bow, his weight shifting in order to move towards the door.
"Louvaen!" It's pure distress, not loud, Leova's face frozen on a gasp. The rest of her is frozen too. It's only that hat tone, that /apology/, that cracks it and sends her, faster, for the stall door. Even now she's careful to latch it again behind her, careful to keep her footsteps just barely more steady than the scramble that might waken sleeping runners, but that carefulness may make her too late.
The soft call just slows Louvaen's retreat, but the sound of footsteps brings him to a halt. A hand, the un-Big Foot-haired one, comes up to scrub at his face. Maybe it's just his palm dragging across his nose as he takes a breath in, but there is a definite sound of a sniffle. He doesn't turn around. He just stands there, shoulders tight and chin slightly dropped. A muffled "yes?" is said through his hand.
Which means that Leova tries to circle around him, because she isn't going to crowd further behind. Looking up, eyes large and round in her weathered face, she forgets patience for his dignity in sheer worry. "I'm sorry. /I'm/ sorry. I didn't say you weren't... I didn't mean..." But not meaning isn't ever good enough, is it? "Don't go like that," quieter now.
Louvaen's chin tips up as Leova circles around him, his hand still bridged over his eyes. He is quiet, chest lifting in deep even breaths as he listens. Finally, his head takes a few slow shakes and he drops his hand back to his side. One last deep breath brings his gaze down to Leova's wide eyes. "It hasn't been the best of days." There's a bit of extra color in his face, weariness dragging at the shadow of his smile. "I am glad that I got to meet Big Foot," warmth breathes back into his voice, the corners of his mouth ticking up a little more solidly. "It was nice to hear you speak about her."
Leova's brows have come together with her attempt to read him, pinching above her nose. A few runner hairs have drifted down from where she rubbed her forehead seemingly so long ago, one lingering on her nose, which twitches but she hasn't a tail with which to swat it away. "She is such a good mare." Leova rubs at her forehead again. It doesn't help matters; her mouth has tightened back up after the mention of the mare's brief respite. "You looked so much happier before. Even when I got to thinking you might be... making fun... I wish I hadn't taken that away." Again.
Louvaen eyes shift slightly as they follow the movement of the runner's hairs and note Leova's expressions, even as she reads his own. He shakes his head again. "You didn't take anything," he disagrees. "I am sorry I made you feel that I might have been making fun of you." He pauses, taking a breath and dropping his gaze to hands that come together to fiddle before him. "What you say often surprises me. In a good way. And I rather enjoy novelty." Chin still lowered, Louvaen slides a look back up to Leova, smile growing crookedly. "But I am afraid I don't have a very good read on your humor."
She doesn't relax: it's more a shift of tension, looser about her arms, but her mouth pressed white. Eventually she exhales, and watches his hands more than his face until she can feel her eyes on her. It's as though he's different now, smiling again, but less polished. Less slick. More... something. Enough so that Leova admits, "Neither do I. About yours, I mean." She shivers suddenly, the draft from the closed door. "I wouldn't have thought anything I could say could strike you. Like that."
Nodding at her confession, Louvaen quiets his hands and folds them together, letting them drop against his legs. Her shiver brings a look of concern to his features. He shifts uncertainly and glances over her shoulder to the drafty doors. "Now I've gone and drawn you away from your jacket," he murmurs under his breath. Looking back to Leova, he continues in a clearer tone. "But you do say these clever, striking things. They make me wonder if such dry and teasing thoughts are running under the surface all the time." He pauses, eyes squinting in a touch in his attempt to understand. "But other times I feel sure that you are truly, straightforwardly serious. In any case, you are quite unique from those in my acquaintance. And - hopefully not freezing yourself standing here in the aisle."
Leova's color rises; she folds her arms over herself, tightly, fingers wrinkling the stained white fabric of her sleeves. She can't look at him for long; instead, to the geldings. Her mare, hers to take care of at least, beyond. Back. Away. "You say such things," she says on a fractured laugh. "Such words. I... don't know what to /do/ with them," and that more strongly before her tone recedes again and steadies there, just as her gaze has. "No, though. I won't freeze. Though she does need fresh water before I go. You'll be safe? On the stones. There was ice, last night."
Louvaen, this time, does not take his gaze from Leova despite her obvious discomfort. Her laughter causes a slight wince of his brows, the words that follow bringing a deeper look to his eye. Apology. Concern. But he does not offer any more words of that sort for her to deal with this night. As she promises not to freeze, his warm smile returns to his features and he nods. "I'll be careful," he gives his own promise in answer to her concern about the ice. "Good night, Leova." Bowing his head once more, this time in better spirits, he takes his leave from the warm stables and moves out into the chill night.
When he has gone, and when she has checked on Big Foot and watered her and cleaned up the combs, Leova slips outside without her jacket. She stands there in the cold, not looking up at the moons or anywhere really, letting the shivers rise up her. Cold. Colder. She breathes it in, holds it in her lungs. Again. Longer. When she's finally where she needs to be, she goes inside to try to sleep: not in her little bed in the dormitory, but the littler cot in the back of the stables, where she can hear the runners breathe.