Temperance [TAG: Aristide, Tempest, Brennan]

[Brennan Shardae]

Theia kept up her moving, refusing to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, but Brennan found that he had already started getting used to it from her.  In fact, he not only expected it, but somewhat enjoyed it.  If she'd stood there like a stone, he would have been concerned.  Being dragged aside, which left Tempest and Papa to go back to the card game they must have been playing before, was no more surprising than anything else she'd done, though he actually preferred it.  He was getting better about many things, but an audience still caused him pause (except when he'd kissed her, which was refreshing and exciting to him).

She was also ridiculously honest, nosy, and yes, vain, but he didn't find himself inwardly disgusted or irritated by it.  She was pushing to know what had happened with him, and that interest in him was what got to him.  That, and her attempting to be considerate while still admitting that she was going to have trouble with it.  It was a switch from demands and generally not caring if he wanted something or not.  He didn't know what had changed, not completely, but he liked it.

Maybe he'd just had to talk to Dania and realize that he'd been building his old life to be something that it hadn't been.  He'd made it into something that he wanted to return to, to achieve, and then he'd had to remind himself that he hadn't.  That it didn't want him any more than he wanted it.

"She didn't freak out, not at first, and just started into what had to be done to please everyone else, as usual.  She hadn't even sounded as though she heard anything I said.  It wasn't until she actually looked at me, and my eyes, that she became upset, and then it was that she couldn't be with me, a falcon," he admitted.  That was the long and short of it, anyway.  He took a seat with her, not really seeming pleased by it all, but it WAS something of a relief.  He didn't have to worry about both anymore.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

 And of course, Theia was one to react well. "Oh," was all she could say. In truth, she'd never wanted to be with Cirrus, not in the way that she was with Brennan, but it was true in as much that different breeds of Falcon alone meant trouble, let alone different species of bird altogether. At least, where the magic was concerned. That's how all of Theia's troubles had started to begin with, with her Ka'Jaes child. Quemaks weren't held in high regard, and since royalty was about producing heirs and preserving the bloodline, she could kind of see why it would have gone over like it had. She hadn't expected less, but she'd been fearful that Brennan would have seen the acceptance that she hadn't, all the same.

  "Some day I might tell you, Brennan, about how wise her decision might have actually been if it was based on that alone, but I don't think it was entirely," she said carefully. She hadn't intended to stumble into something so serious as her own past in all of this - why the thought hadn't occurred to her she'd never know, probably to due with the idea that she never planned accordingly - but she had visibly calmed, and was less animated than she had been previously.

  "I'm sorry things didn't work out, but only because it seems like you wanted them to. I'm not sorry that you came back, because I want you here, and I can admit I'm selfish. I'm not saying I'm going to profess undying love to you, but I like things better when you're around," she said honestly.