A soft wind was blowing.
"Look, Seele... Is it familiar?" A young man asked wistfully. His pale ginger hair ruffled slightly with the breeze, and the expression on his face held countless undercurrents, as if his thoughts were turbulent, and he wasn't sure himself how he felt. Upon closer inspection, perhaps he was not a young man at all, but a very nearly grown boy. Certainly, his features had something of a childishness to them, as if he might run and laugh and splay out his arms, twirling like a dancer, this very moment. Something about the light in his eyes betrayed him.
That's not for me to decide, his companion informed him, with a shrug of short Lubshi arms. Giant, multicolored eyes swirled, glinting in the dying light of the sun.
You have been here. Not this place, but this land."Yes, but that was a very long time ago," the boy replied, shaking his head in dissatisfaction. "How can it be familiar if such a time has passed?"
Is that so? The Lubshi made a face, and the boy laughed. It was a light sound, clear and soft, that it might become a bird if he so bid. He spread his arms wide, throwing back his head, sighing.
"I think it is familiar after all," he said. "It must be."
And how do you figure that? the Lubshi asked absent-mindedly, turning its head to watch the passing of a flock of... well, something with wings. It was always hard to tell at such distance what anything was.
"The wind, see? It likes me. It's welcoming me home." The boy gestured at the air around him, a sudden wild grin lighting pale green eyes, inlaid with shards of deep, sparkling gold. With his light dusting of freckles and his tousled short hair, he resembled something very feral. The Lubshi had to look at him hard for a moment, to assure itself that its boy had not gone and turned into someone, some
thing else. But no, they had known each other far too long, and this was simply one of his moods. It, like all the others before it, would pass.
And I suppose you would deduce the nature of any place from the friendliness of its breeze, the Lubshi snapped, more harshly than it meant, for it had not liked being startled.
You will have us traversing through dank caves, you forever reassuring me that there is nothing amiss, for there is not even the faintest trickle of air. And then we shall suffocate, or else be eaten by dark things. It shuddered. The boy smiled, his lips parted on the verge of another peal of laughter, but at the last second he changed his mind.
"Perhaps," he murmured, and danced away laughing from the Lubshi's expression of surprised indignation.