Time is the Best Medicine... Right?

NOITCERRU If the birdman was in any way perturbed by the Helovian's gaze he certainly didn't show it. Noitcerru didn't smile back - he didn't seem to recognise he had to smile back, or that it was polite. He only looked, with beady brown eyes that darted over the stallion's frame in short, quick bursts - flitting here and there without rhyme or reason. It was as if he was unable to stare at anything for long, or unable to sweep over something smoothly; where his eyes went his head followed like a bird's, as if he couldn't move his eyes independently. If he could, he certainly didn't keep his head still, instead bobbing and weaving like that of a raptor where his wings treaded air. Drabcoat. Yes, he could see where the name came from now in the male's palette of greys and whites. Amusement ran along his mouth, pulling at the edges. But this stallion still stood, on his own four hooves, and Noitcerru could not help to notice he had no wings. The male could've had the most plain coat in the world and yet the fact he could stand was of endless fascination to the stallion who had spent nine tenths of his life in the air. And although he had no wings he certainly had a horn. The blue bands around the horn's width drew Noitcerru in, attracted to colour as he was, his eyes followed the path of the spiral as if trapped to its circuit. Some of his fellow birds did not identify colour, or did not seem to. He had watched them and they could not pinpoint what he could. Noitcerru, on the other hand, could not help but be drawn in by it - and how the horn grew to taper to a thin point. The birdman's ears flickered back in discomfort at the presumed weapon. Whether it was brittle or not he could not discern, and he preferred not to take chances. Best to stay where he was, then....for now. The hoofed were chained to the land, unlike himself - but their horns could still be a threat, and could still catch his own limbs or his stomach if he flew too low. He was too busy looking at this newcomer to notice that the stallion did not immediately respond to his question; if anything he had fixed his gaze on the tip of the stranger's horn, his mind occupied by thoughts of possible danger. When the black shadow erupted from his bag Noitcerru cawed in surprise - a sharp, feral sound. He drew his wings to their full span and flapped once, startled by the sudden interruption. But when the small creature stayed in its pouch he stilled, his wings withdrawing back. "Apollo," he repeated. "A-pol-lo-oh" He rolled the name around his mouth, feeling its bizarre intonation, what felt to him like just a ton of syllables rammed together. A pause. "Noy-ser-roo. Noitcerru." That was the nearest to an introduction as it got. As for the stallion's question..."'Remind you of home'? 'Remind you of home'?" He parroted back Apollo's words from when he had heard them. It wasn't a perfect mimicry; he couldn't catch the precise sound of every vowel, couldn't quite pick up the tone. Regardless - it was an imitation, and made the point he had been, to some extent, listening. His own tone changed, became stilted as he returned to some degree of normal speech. Full sentences jarred against his usual bird-call syntax. "You are a plaincoat. Plaincoats do not come from here. Helovia is green, not black. I know." He’d been there, for a few fleeting hours, and this plaincoat was not unlike those he had seen then. But the only colours that seemed to correspond with that of the Rift itself in this male was the stallion's blue-black horn. If the stallion had had a more colourful coat perhaps he would've had more difficulty in distinguishing Riftian from Helovian. He smiled, a crude drawing back of his lips. "'Sunstealer'. 'Godkiller'." Those were not his words, and a chirrup of laughter came from his jaws. He did not have the same anger against the Helovians as the rest of his kind. Why would he? They were all the same down below. It just so happened that the Helovians were, perhaps, even more interesting on account of their....proclivities. "Killers of gods meant to look different. Bigger." Not small and wingless. But he wasn't the thing that looked dangerous here, despite his horn. "But you don't kill Zo-laa. It is strange." He turned his head on one side, echoing Apollo's own movement as if a mirror image. But he wasn’t looking at Apollo now. What the hell was the thing in the bag? It looked...familiar, but it didn’t have the span of peacock feathers he was expecting - and its presence, whatever it was, was bothering him. "Pavo Cat. Pavo," he repeated, looking straight at the satchel - or the thing in the satchel. "Yet not." __________________________________________________________ "Talk" OOC: @Apollo run boy run this world is not made for you

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