I don't notice any delay or lull in our conversation, hell, if anything, I worry that in my exhaustion and general just-been-transported-to-some-unknown-plane-of-existence mood is causing me to take longer than normal to formulate replies. I'm not stupid, some may even call me witty, intelligent, a bright spark, but right now it feels like the world is pressing down on me and I don't know how long I can take it.
The deer leaps onto my lap, and I welcome it, allowing my arms to fall gently around it in a soft embrace. It's warmth and bleating breaths help to ground me in the here and now, and I find myself slowly able to (again) refocus.
Strange sensations roll over me - or is it through me? A sense of amusement, of silent laughter, not unkind but gentle and lilting, wry and almost certainly not originating within me. I feel a sort of echo bounce through my head, though I can't quite make it out. I look around the room, the firelight reflecting against my glacial eyes to turn them a fathomless emerald hue.
I pick up snippets of conversation, like overhearing something from another room - until with a sudden clarity I hear "-downed a Ningo before that, or I might have taken him up on it." "If I'd known crackers were the way to your heart I would've started carrying them long ago."
"Can't say I've ever heard the name before," I reply softly, managing to keep myself from looking around desperately for these new (yet familiar) voices that have decided to start echoing in my head.
"Um, what's a Ningo?" I ask tentatively, hoping that Loren's assessment of my sanity isn't completely reassessed with this new question. Absentmindedly, I fetch more biscuits from my coat pocket to feed to Astra, having decided that I could use a friend, furred though she may be, in this weird new world.
The deer leaps onto my lap, and I welcome it, allowing my arms to fall gently around it in a soft embrace. It's warmth and bleating breaths help to ground me in the here and now, and I find myself slowly able to (again) refocus.
Strange sensations roll over me - or is it through me? A sense of amusement, of silent laughter, not unkind but gentle and lilting, wry and almost certainly not originating within me. I feel a sort of echo bounce through my head, though I can't quite make it out. I look around the room, the firelight reflecting against my glacial eyes to turn them a fathomless emerald hue.
I pick up snippets of conversation, like overhearing something from another room - until with a sudden clarity I hear "-downed a Ningo before that, or I might have taken him up on it." "If I'd known crackers were the way to your heart I would've started carrying them long ago."
"Can't say I've ever heard the name before," I reply softly, managing to keep myself from looking around desperately for these new (yet familiar) voices that have decided to start echoing in my head.
"Um, what's a Ningo?" I ask tentatively, hoping that Loren's assessment of my sanity isn't completely reassessed with this new question. Absentmindedly, I fetch more biscuits from my coat pocket to feed to Astra, having decided that I could use a friend, furred though she may be, in this weird new world.
Chulane