Toby and Diaval | Backdated to 6/3/15
Jun. 3rd, 2015 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
om_changeling posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
om_mainFairy Tale Creatures unite! Or at least, talk, flirt, and have crepes.
Horses.
Toby chuckled and shook her head as she stood in the doorway of the stables. Okay, yeah, she'd heard the school offered an equestrian class, but like so many things she'd heard that first day, it had sort of gone over her head. But here they were, honest to God horses.
This place was unbelievable.
A new set of hooves came clopping toward the stables toward the broad open barn doors. The horse approaching was tall and very black, with a thick, full, feathery mane. That was the first clue that he wasn't, perhaps, one of the Xavier school horses. The second was the shiny black beak that he had in place of a normal horse's muzzle.
The fact that he politely bent his head and tapped Toby on the shoulder with said beak was, probably, the third.
Toby turned at the sound of what she assumed was another horse being led into the stable, and startled backwards as the feathered - well, creature, because there was no way that thing was an actual horse tapped her on the shoulder. Eyes wide, she slipped her hand into her pocket to toy with her knife, but then took a breath. "Okay...okay. There's some way this makes sense, right?" she said aloud. Some way that didn't involve random animal transformations again, or - oh! "Shapeshifter?" she asked hopefully. She didn't remember anyone mentioning a horse, but she was pretty sure there'd been something about a bird.
With an amused snort, the not-a-horse bobbed his head in a gesture that looked like a nod. One front hoof stepped out, the other front leg bent, and Diaval bent his neck in a horse's bow. For a real horse, it would have taken intensive training to learn a complicated move like that, but luckily, Diaval could do it at a whim.
When he straightened back up, shook back his feathery mane, and then nosed toward a nearby empty stall, where his clothes were waiting.
Toby laughed outright at the not-quite-horse's bow, but her eyebrows shot up as it headed into one of the stalls and followed after. "Hey, where are you - oh." She grinned crookedly as she realized that the horse wasn't a horse any longer, and that apparently, not all shapeshifters shifted with clothes intact. "Right. I'll be right over...there." Still grinning, she walked far enough away to ensure privacy and waited.
Diaval thought he'd made himself as clear as he could, but if Toby wanted to watch him shift, she was welcome to it. He made sure to keep his backside to her, at least, when a ripple and ruffle of feathers changed him from a very black horse to a fairly pale, quite tall young man with raven-black hair.
In a few seconds, he'd pulled on his jeans and a t-shirt, and turned to lean on the stall door as though he belonged in there, barefoot in the hay. He smiled, a small and crooked smile. "All clear. All bums covered, promise," called Diaval, his voice rough, scratchy-sounding, and definitely accented Northern English.
Toby chuckled and turned back towards him, offering a crooked smile in turn.. "Sorry. It never occurred to me that the clothes might not go with."
"Only for the lucky ones," Diaval sighed, his accent molding the vowels into one another, dropping the consonants in between. Since Doug understood him no matter how he slurred, Diaval sometimes didn't bother remembering about proper pronunciation. "If it's not part of my birthday suit, it doesn't go with me when I shift. You known many shifters, then?"
"Not really," Toby admitted. This particular shifter was even harder to understand than Tybalt at his best - accents were't really her best skill - but she was pretty sure she'd gotten the jist. "I took my turn as a raccoon lately, though. And once as a cat before that." She smiled crookedly. "Both occasions, my clothes stayed with, which was probably the best part."
Diaval clucked his tongue, with an envious shake of the head. "Consider yourself very lucky. It's a right pain, climbing in and out every time. Someday, I'm going to make friends with one of those genius scientist mutants, and get them to invent me some clothes that shift with me. Imagine a horse in a t-shirt, would you?" He grinned, dark eyes glittering as he knew he was being silly. "So dashing."
"Hey, there's something to be said for the au natural look," Toby countered, grinning just a bit. "It's not like you've got anything to be ashamed of there. At least based on the glimpse I got." After all, if he wasn't going to be weird about it, she didn't see any reason to be. It wasn't as if she'd never seen a guy naked before.
At that, Diaval practically preened, straightening up and fluffing his shiny black hair from his face with his fingers. "Oh, did you think so? I try to keep in shape. Several of 'em." He paused, then winked. To him, that was a hilarious joke.
Toby smirked. "Well, I can't say as I caught more than a glimpse, but I don't think you've got anything to worry about. But I'm guessing you probably hear that pretty often?" He definitely seemed as if he knew it well enough, or possibly just had self-confidence in spades. Either way, he definitely wasn't hard on the eyes.
"As a point of fact, you can never say 'pretty bird' to a feathered friend too often," Diaval confided, finally finding his shoes and stepping out from the now empty horse stall. Maybe he was a little bit vain, but he also thought he had plenty of reason. "Should you meet any ravens near the school grounds, you should try it. That's my usual non-person shape. Today's a bit of an unusual case."
A raven. And a horse. Something about that struck a chord, and Toby paused, trying to puzzle out what. After a moment, she grinned. "Diaval, right? Fairy Tale Creatures guy. You replied to my intro post. Sorry, I didn't put two and two together."
Diaval swept into a low bow, quite courtly despite the rustic stable setting, and the hay and all. "At your service. That makes you..." He glanced to one side of the girl, then the other, and finished, "Well, I don't see any pink wings, so I suppose that makes you the Changeling. Toby, isn't it?"
"Toby," she confirmed. She grinned. "I've seen the girl with the wings, though. Megan was on my squad before they did the big reshuffle. Trust me, you won't mix us up."
"Well, not now," agreed Diaval, though it was difficult to tell if he was being wholly serious or not. He gestured down the line of the other stalls, only about half-full at this time of day with the lovely weather outside. "Did you want to meet the rest of the herd?"
Toby grinned. "I don't know - are any of the others also students? Because I'm probably going to get a reputation as a stalker or something if I keep looking in stalls at guys changing."
"As far as I know, none of the others actually take classes," Diaval answered with a scratchy laugh. "Though most of them take part in Equestrian class, of course. I haven't seen any of the others shift forms, but I suppose that doesn't mean much, here."
"You're not -" Toby shook her head, dismissing her half-posed question, and grinned crookedly. No, he wasn't serious. Fuck, this place was really messing with everything she'd ever assumed to be obvious if she even had to ask. "Guess I'll take my chances at the introductions then. Though I warn you - I think I'm still trying to get all the people's names straight."
"Well, lucky for you, horses are less picky about what they're called than people are," Diaval explained, and led the way down the row of stalls. He did indeed know each of the horses by name, and something about their temperaments. To Diaval, the animals were just as individual as people, and he treated them as such.
As they got toward the end, he asked, "Do you like to ride?"
"Never tried it," Toby admitted. She leaned against the stall of the last horse she'd been introduced to and grinned crookedly. "City girl. Riding ops didn't pop up real often. What about you - ever tried it from the rider's side of things?"
Diaval shook his head. "I might've sat on a pony when I was much smaller, but now it just seems silly. Like putting a saddle on one of my squad mates, but without the awkward questions and restraining orders."
"Aww, but those are what put the fun in life, aren't they? Add a little adventure." She grinned, eyebrows rising, and tilted her chin to indicate his scars. "Looks like you've had plenty without, though. Mind if I ask what happened?"
For the first time, Diaval didn't have a ready answer, and he hesitated. The scars made him self-conscious, though he wasn't ashamed. He was more concerned with the reaction of others when he told them. "Ah," he said, lifting one hand to touch the feathery scar to the side of his right eye. "It happens when I shift into something new. Not sure why, can't really predict it. I've earned three sets so far."
Well, that was fucked up, wasn't it? Also a nice way to stick her foot in her mouth. "Fuck. And here I just figured you ran into someone with a seriously strange knife." Toby offered an apologetic look and crooked smile. "At least they're cool scars? None of mine do a thing for me."
Diaval disliked other people feeling uncomfortable on his behalf, so he was relieved that Toby did not seem too upset. He shrugged, congenially. "The next shape I try, I'm a bit concerned where they might end up. Could make sitting in class more than a little uncomfortable." Diaval feigned a grimace. "They've all been, er, symmetrical, you know."
Despite the awkwardness of the topic, Toby's smile quirked a bit more. "Sounds like it could be awkward. I sort of missed out on the symmetry, though. Talk about missed opportunities." She raised her eyebrows. "They go all the way down, then?"
Diaval looked startled for a second -- he didn't think she'd be that forward! girls usually weren't with him -- before he cracked a small smile. He touched the half-seen scars at his throat, then on either side of his chest. "Only this far down, up to this point. But you can see why I might get concerned."
Toby almost regretted her words, but then Diaval smiled. Whew - he was as okay with her having seen him change as he'd pretended. "I can definitely see why. Gotta admit, if I were you, I'd be worried." She eyed him with interest. "Is that why you stopped at three, then? Or just a side reason?"
"It's a major contributing factor," agreed Diaval, making his way at a strolling pace for the barn doors. Now that he'd greeted all the residents, he was ready to find another way to pass the time. "The first shift in a new form isn't always very nice. You think it's going to be so delightful being a wolf, and then you learn how awful they smell. For instance."
Toby laughed as she followed him out of the barn. "Bad, huh? I haven't tried a wolf. A cat and a raccoon were more than enough." She grinned and added, "Does your wolf form have a beak, too?"
"No," Diaval answered, with a certain measure of pride. "But I do have a lovely feather tail, and a few feathers in the ruff as well. Everything's better with feathers, don't you think? If you try changing again, I highly recommend them."
"I'll keep it in mind. If it means flying, I might actually be up for that." Her grin tilted and she shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I rode Vance's blood recently - gotta admit, I'm definitely hooked."
Stepping out into the sunshine, Diaval looked curiously at Toby. "Rode his... ?"
"Umm...blood?" Toby looked awkward. "Drank it - he was okay with it - and copied his powers for a while." She shrugged. "I've been trying to come up with a decent name for it that doesn't conjure up thoughts of vampires, but it's a work in progress."
Diaval held up his hands briefly, not seeming bothered. He'd only been confused for a moment. "Don't look at me, I'm not clever at naming things. You don't want your fellow students to think of you as a vampire? I was given to understand that vampires are quite cool."
"Pretty sure vampires are only cool when they're in a book or a movie." Toby grinned crookedly, relieved that Diaval was going for the joke rather than pointing out just how weird her mutation was. "No one really wants one living down the hall. Besides, I don't have fangs and I don't glitter or crumble to dust in sunlight. As vamps go, I'd be a huge disappointment."
"Well, we can't have that," said Diaval with a cluck of his tongue. He seemed to be meandering back toward the mansion, though clearly in no rush. "Elf then, maybe?" he suggested, touching one of his own ears to indicate her pointed ones. "Some of those old stories are downright bloodthirsty."
"Right?" Toby grinned over at him. "I love those - I mean, the old fairy tales are still corny, but they've got an edge at least. That's why I went with Changeling for a codename or whatever you call it. Might as well put the ears to some use." She eyed him curiously. "What about you? Any Poe references in yours?"
"Rook," he answered with a small shrug. "Rather simple. I did go as Poe for Halloween. School had a fancy dress party and I thought I'd go for the obvious. Turns out there are a lot of parties. I recommend keeping some of your creativity in your back pocket for whatever's coming next."
"I'm not big on crowds," Toby admitted. "I may just take a pass on the parties. Besides," she admitted with a grin, "creativity really isn't my strong point. I'd go dressed like this and get my ass kicked out." She nudged him with her elbow. "Poe, though, huh? Sounds like a decent costume. Did you have a raven, or just turn into one halfway through?"
Diaval laughed briefly. "Wee plush one, pinned to my shoulder, potentially driving me mad," he explained. "It's harder than you'd think to enjoy a human party in bird form. Bird party, though..." His dark eyes were sparkling as he went to catch the door back into the house for Toby.
Toby chuckled. "A bird party?" she asked leadingly. He had to be putting her on, right? There couldn't possibly be any such thing.
"Have you ever seen a human at a bird party?" Diaval pointed out with raised brows. Of course he was teasing; he could barely keep a straight face.
"Can't say that I have." Toby tried hard not to grin. "I take it I'm missing something?"
Diaval shook a finger, ushering them both inside. "No, no, you'll never see a human at a bird party. Birds won't stand for it. That's when they let their feathers down."
Toby stared at him for a moment, then laughed, pointing at him in accusation. "You set me up, just for that line."
Diaval's eyes glittered, and he confessed, "I... may have done. Can you really blame me? It was quite a good one." He smiled in a way he hoped was endearing. "I could mend my honor with a treat. Do you like crepes?"
"I think I can honestly say that I've never had crepes," Toby admitted. And smiled, because yes. Diaval's smile was most definitely endearing. "But considering that honor's important? I'd definitely be willing to try them."
"It has everything to do with honor," Diaval assured her, leading the way to the kitchen and trying not to walk too fast so she could keep up. "And nothing to do with my feeling quite like eating a crepe just now. Are you more a fruit person or a chocolate person?"
"This is where I should probably say fruit, but really? I'm good with chocolate," Toby admitted. "Whichever your honor demands is fine, though. I'll eat pretty much anything."
That cracked a raspy little laugh from Diaval, and he nodded his agreement. "Crepes filled with chocolate, it is. And honor. Of course."
Horses.
Toby chuckled and shook her head as she stood in the doorway of the stables. Okay, yeah, she'd heard the school offered an equestrian class, but like so many things she'd heard that first day, it had sort of gone over her head. But here they were, honest to God horses.
This place was unbelievable.
A new set of hooves came clopping toward the stables toward the broad open barn doors. The horse approaching was tall and very black, with a thick, full, feathery mane. That was the first clue that he wasn't, perhaps, one of the Xavier school horses. The second was the shiny black beak that he had in place of a normal horse's muzzle.
The fact that he politely bent his head and tapped Toby on the shoulder with said beak was, probably, the third.
Toby turned at the sound of what she assumed was another horse being led into the stable, and startled backwards as the feathered - well, creature, because there was no way that thing was an actual horse tapped her on the shoulder. Eyes wide, she slipped her hand into her pocket to toy with her knife, but then took a breath. "Okay...okay. There's some way this makes sense, right?" she said aloud. Some way that didn't involve random animal transformations again, or - oh! "Shapeshifter?" she asked hopefully. She didn't remember anyone mentioning a horse, but she was pretty sure there'd been something about a bird.
With an amused snort, the not-a-horse bobbed his head in a gesture that looked like a nod. One front hoof stepped out, the other front leg bent, and Diaval bent his neck in a horse's bow. For a real horse, it would have taken intensive training to learn a complicated move like that, but luckily, Diaval could do it at a whim.
When he straightened back up, shook back his feathery mane, and then nosed toward a nearby empty stall, where his clothes were waiting.
Toby laughed outright at the not-quite-horse's bow, but her eyebrows shot up as it headed into one of the stalls and followed after. "Hey, where are you - oh." She grinned crookedly as she realized that the horse wasn't a horse any longer, and that apparently, not all shapeshifters shifted with clothes intact. "Right. I'll be right over...there." Still grinning, she walked far enough away to ensure privacy and waited.
Diaval thought he'd made himself as clear as he could, but if Toby wanted to watch him shift, she was welcome to it. He made sure to keep his backside to her, at least, when a ripple and ruffle of feathers changed him from a very black horse to a fairly pale, quite tall young man with raven-black hair.
In a few seconds, he'd pulled on his jeans and a t-shirt, and turned to lean on the stall door as though he belonged in there, barefoot in the hay. He smiled, a small and crooked smile. "All clear. All bums covered, promise," called Diaval, his voice rough, scratchy-sounding, and definitely accented Northern English.
Toby chuckled and turned back towards him, offering a crooked smile in turn.. "Sorry. It never occurred to me that the clothes might not go with."
"Only for the lucky ones," Diaval sighed, his accent molding the vowels into one another, dropping the consonants in between. Since Doug understood him no matter how he slurred, Diaval sometimes didn't bother remembering about proper pronunciation. "If it's not part of my birthday suit, it doesn't go with me when I shift. You known many shifters, then?"
"Not really," Toby admitted. This particular shifter was even harder to understand than Tybalt at his best - accents were't really her best skill - but she was pretty sure she'd gotten the jist. "I took my turn as a raccoon lately, though. And once as a cat before that." She smiled crookedly. "Both occasions, my clothes stayed with, which was probably the best part."
Diaval clucked his tongue, with an envious shake of the head. "Consider yourself very lucky. It's a right pain, climbing in and out every time. Someday, I'm going to make friends with one of those genius scientist mutants, and get them to invent me some clothes that shift with me. Imagine a horse in a t-shirt, would you?" He grinned, dark eyes glittering as he knew he was being silly. "So dashing."
"Hey, there's something to be said for the au natural look," Toby countered, grinning just a bit. "It's not like you've got anything to be ashamed of there. At least based on the glimpse I got." After all, if he wasn't going to be weird about it, she didn't see any reason to be. It wasn't as if she'd never seen a guy naked before.
At that, Diaval practically preened, straightening up and fluffing his shiny black hair from his face with his fingers. "Oh, did you think so? I try to keep in shape. Several of 'em." He paused, then winked. To him, that was a hilarious joke.
Toby smirked. "Well, I can't say as I caught more than a glimpse, but I don't think you've got anything to worry about. But I'm guessing you probably hear that pretty often?" He definitely seemed as if he knew it well enough, or possibly just had self-confidence in spades. Either way, he definitely wasn't hard on the eyes.
"As a point of fact, you can never say 'pretty bird' to a feathered friend too often," Diaval confided, finally finding his shoes and stepping out from the now empty horse stall. Maybe he was a little bit vain, but he also thought he had plenty of reason. "Should you meet any ravens near the school grounds, you should try it. That's my usual non-person shape. Today's a bit of an unusual case."
A raven. And a horse. Something about that struck a chord, and Toby paused, trying to puzzle out what. After a moment, she grinned. "Diaval, right? Fairy Tale Creatures guy. You replied to my intro post. Sorry, I didn't put two and two together."
Diaval swept into a low bow, quite courtly despite the rustic stable setting, and the hay and all. "At your service. That makes you..." He glanced to one side of the girl, then the other, and finished, "Well, I don't see any pink wings, so I suppose that makes you the Changeling. Toby, isn't it?"
"Toby," she confirmed. She grinned. "I've seen the girl with the wings, though. Megan was on my squad before they did the big reshuffle. Trust me, you won't mix us up."
"Well, not now," agreed Diaval, though it was difficult to tell if he was being wholly serious or not. He gestured down the line of the other stalls, only about half-full at this time of day with the lovely weather outside. "Did you want to meet the rest of the herd?"
Toby grinned. "I don't know - are any of the others also students? Because I'm probably going to get a reputation as a stalker or something if I keep looking in stalls at guys changing."
"As far as I know, none of the others actually take classes," Diaval answered with a scratchy laugh. "Though most of them take part in Equestrian class, of course. I haven't seen any of the others shift forms, but I suppose that doesn't mean much, here."
"You're not -" Toby shook her head, dismissing her half-posed question, and grinned crookedly. No, he wasn't serious. Fuck, this place was really messing with everything she'd ever assumed to be obvious if she even had to ask. "Guess I'll take my chances at the introductions then. Though I warn you - I think I'm still trying to get all the people's names straight."
"Well, lucky for you, horses are less picky about what they're called than people are," Diaval explained, and led the way down the row of stalls. He did indeed know each of the horses by name, and something about their temperaments. To Diaval, the animals were just as individual as people, and he treated them as such.
As they got toward the end, he asked, "Do you like to ride?"
"Never tried it," Toby admitted. She leaned against the stall of the last horse she'd been introduced to and grinned crookedly. "City girl. Riding ops didn't pop up real often. What about you - ever tried it from the rider's side of things?"
Diaval shook his head. "I might've sat on a pony when I was much smaller, but now it just seems silly. Like putting a saddle on one of my squad mates, but without the awkward questions and restraining orders."
"Aww, but those are what put the fun in life, aren't they? Add a little adventure." She grinned, eyebrows rising, and tilted her chin to indicate his scars. "Looks like you've had plenty without, though. Mind if I ask what happened?"
For the first time, Diaval didn't have a ready answer, and he hesitated. The scars made him self-conscious, though he wasn't ashamed. He was more concerned with the reaction of others when he told them. "Ah," he said, lifting one hand to touch the feathery scar to the side of his right eye. "It happens when I shift into something new. Not sure why, can't really predict it. I've earned three sets so far."
Well, that was fucked up, wasn't it? Also a nice way to stick her foot in her mouth. "Fuck. And here I just figured you ran into someone with a seriously strange knife." Toby offered an apologetic look and crooked smile. "At least they're cool scars? None of mine do a thing for me."
Diaval disliked other people feeling uncomfortable on his behalf, so he was relieved that Toby did not seem too upset. He shrugged, congenially. "The next shape I try, I'm a bit concerned where they might end up. Could make sitting in class more than a little uncomfortable." Diaval feigned a grimace. "They've all been, er, symmetrical, you know."
Despite the awkwardness of the topic, Toby's smile quirked a bit more. "Sounds like it could be awkward. I sort of missed out on the symmetry, though. Talk about missed opportunities." She raised her eyebrows. "They go all the way down, then?"
Diaval looked startled for a second -- he didn't think she'd be that forward! girls usually weren't with him -- before he cracked a small smile. He touched the half-seen scars at his throat, then on either side of his chest. "Only this far down, up to this point. But you can see why I might get concerned."
Toby almost regretted her words, but then Diaval smiled. Whew - he was as okay with her having seen him change as he'd pretended. "I can definitely see why. Gotta admit, if I were you, I'd be worried." She eyed him with interest. "Is that why you stopped at three, then? Or just a side reason?"
"It's a major contributing factor," agreed Diaval, making his way at a strolling pace for the barn doors. Now that he'd greeted all the residents, he was ready to find another way to pass the time. "The first shift in a new form isn't always very nice. You think it's going to be so delightful being a wolf, and then you learn how awful they smell. For instance."
Toby laughed as she followed him out of the barn. "Bad, huh? I haven't tried a wolf. A cat and a raccoon were more than enough." She grinned and added, "Does your wolf form have a beak, too?"
"No," Diaval answered, with a certain measure of pride. "But I do have a lovely feather tail, and a few feathers in the ruff as well. Everything's better with feathers, don't you think? If you try changing again, I highly recommend them."
"I'll keep it in mind. If it means flying, I might actually be up for that." Her grin tilted and she shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I rode Vance's blood recently - gotta admit, I'm definitely hooked."
Stepping out into the sunshine, Diaval looked curiously at Toby. "Rode his... ?"
"Umm...blood?" Toby looked awkward. "Drank it - he was okay with it - and copied his powers for a while." She shrugged. "I've been trying to come up with a decent name for it that doesn't conjure up thoughts of vampires, but it's a work in progress."
Diaval held up his hands briefly, not seeming bothered. He'd only been confused for a moment. "Don't look at me, I'm not clever at naming things. You don't want your fellow students to think of you as a vampire? I was given to understand that vampires are quite cool."
"Pretty sure vampires are only cool when they're in a book or a movie." Toby grinned crookedly, relieved that Diaval was going for the joke rather than pointing out just how weird her mutation was. "No one really wants one living down the hall. Besides, I don't have fangs and I don't glitter or crumble to dust in sunlight. As vamps go, I'd be a huge disappointment."
"Well, we can't have that," said Diaval with a cluck of his tongue. He seemed to be meandering back toward the mansion, though clearly in no rush. "Elf then, maybe?" he suggested, touching one of his own ears to indicate her pointed ones. "Some of those old stories are downright bloodthirsty."
"Right?" Toby grinned over at him. "I love those - I mean, the old fairy tales are still corny, but they've got an edge at least. That's why I went with Changeling for a codename or whatever you call it. Might as well put the ears to some use." She eyed him curiously. "What about you? Any Poe references in yours?"
"Rook," he answered with a small shrug. "Rather simple. I did go as Poe for Halloween. School had a fancy dress party and I thought I'd go for the obvious. Turns out there are a lot of parties. I recommend keeping some of your creativity in your back pocket for whatever's coming next."
"I'm not big on crowds," Toby admitted. "I may just take a pass on the parties. Besides," she admitted with a grin, "creativity really isn't my strong point. I'd go dressed like this and get my ass kicked out." She nudged him with her elbow. "Poe, though, huh? Sounds like a decent costume. Did you have a raven, or just turn into one halfway through?"
Diaval laughed briefly. "Wee plush one, pinned to my shoulder, potentially driving me mad," he explained. "It's harder than you'd think to enjoy a human party in bird form. Bird party, though..." His dark eyes were sparkling as he went to catch the door back into the house for Toby.
Toby chuckled. "A bird party?" she asked leadingly. He had to be putting her on, right? There couldn't possibly be any such thing.
"Have you ever seen a human at a bird party?" Diaval pointed out with raised brows. Of course he was teasing; he could barely keep a straight face.
"Can't say that I have." Toby tried hard not to grin. "I take it I'm missing something?"
Diaval shook a finger, ushering them both inside. "No, no, you'll never see a human at a bird party. Birds won't stand for it. That's when they let their feathers down."
Toby stared at him for a moment, then laughed, pointing at him in accusation. "You set me up, just for that line."
Diaval's eyes glittered, and he confessed, "I... may have done. Can you really blame me? It was quite a good one." He smiled in a way he hoped was endearing. "I could mend my honor with a treat. Do you like crepes?"
"I think I can honestly say that I've never had crepes," Toby admitted. And smiled, because yes. Diaval's smile was most definitely endearing. "But considering that honor's important? I'd definitely be willing to try them."
"It has everything to do with honor," Diaval assured her, leading the way to the kitchen and trying not to walk too fast so she could keep up. "And nothing to do with my feeling quite like eating a crepe just now. Are you more a fruit person or a chocolate person?"
"This is where I should probably say fruit, but really? I'm good with chocolate," Toby admitted. "Whichever your honor demands is fine, though. I'll eat pretty much anything."
That cracked a raspy little laugh from Diaval, and he nodded his agreement. "Crepes filled with chocolate, it is. And honor. Of course."
