He hadn't really considered his deal with Alaric to be kind of all things, more so convenient. So, Violarums tarts pout-ishly wondering if he was a nice guy after all. He didn't want to be a nice guy. He wanted to be a King. King's weren't nice - were they?

"Yes," he replies simply, his expression perking up again as he looked over Brynja with a rekindled curiosity. She was just like Basura, and he very much liked Basura. Come to think of it, @Brynja was pretty alright herself. "Why?" he feels she once made mention of eating plants, perhaps last time they had met, but Basura didn't eat plants.

He settles in for the explanation, wriggling down into the mud, forgetting the burn of his wounds for a moment. _{— code}

Brynja

He was still interested and Brynja sighed, why anyone was so interested in the why befuddled her. Most were simply concerned if it was a disease or not and left it at that.

My family thought we were cursed. She thought herself ridicuous spewing her family's beliefs to Vio. She sounded as much, rolling her eyes at her own explanation. Everyone of us had some degree of... this. She gestured her chin and nose downwards to her bare greyish, fleshy belly. Speckled with spots, lethered in the sun. We're born this way and it gets worse over time until we're grown. There's nothing to be done to change it. Not for lack of trying. Unfortunately not that too enlightening or exciting of a story. And she expected that @Violarum would be disappointed that there wasn't more to it.

Violarum Frei

He watches her reveal the reasoning for her condition with mild curiosity, but it didn't really answer anything at all. All he had learnt was that it was genetic, and nothing could be done about it. So, @Brynja was just 'unlucky', and likely her babies would be too. Somewhat satisfied, Violarum moves past her oddity, storing his awareness of it somewhere deep within, looking at her now as he did anybody else.

"I bet mud feels good on your belly," he spoke what he thought, and he looks rather pleased with himself. It must do, right? Cold and refreshing on a hot, summers day. Sucks that it was winter right now. Then, almost like it was a reflex his oversized paw wriggles into the Mire-Mud and tries to fling some at her undersides.

_{table by yumpy}

Brynja

Oh you have no idea. She said playfully with a grin on her face. She didn't actually know the difference, never having a furred belly and undersides to get the mud into. But the thick, wet damp earth especially that she found int he Mire was a good way to keep the heat from her skin. Suddenly a spaltter of mud cascading across her grey belly, some speckles running up her chest and down the sides of her forelimbs.

She looked down at where @Violarum's 'attack' had landed and she smoothly, softly, began to chuckle. ... You'd regret that if I thought I could get you back adequaely without ruining your dressed wounds. She did not want her work undone. But oh she wanted to fling plenty back athim, maaybe tackle him down into the mud itself.

Always the childish one, perhaps Violarum should have been thankful for @Brynja 's greater maturity. Her chuckle is enough to please him, his ears quirking forward happily at the chortle - his tail starting to twitch like a kitten waiting for something to pounce on. Yet, she resists, and the excited quivers soon die down into static.

"I hope so," it lacks the mischievous flare that most give, instead he is genuinely ambitious Brynja might one day throw mud back at him - he always loved a good mud fight, or wrestle, or any play really. Though with the naked-bellied woman shrugging off his cage-rattle in the name of his wounds, he stands to take his leave.

It had been a good time, her company only reminding him he rather liked the peculiar woman. Maybe, they could be friends. "Thanks," he says simply, gruffly as he begins to wander off, but not without checking in - "Can we be friends?" _{— code}

Brynja

He took the promise of retaliation well and it made Brynja smile. She had grown accustomed to the Mire pride being... confrontational to put it nicely. Careful, sensitive. Violarum had proven to be something else. He welcomed it and Brynja appreciated having that around.

But just as soon as she was thinking that appreciation he came out with a question that struck her in the heart and made her grow rapidly troubled. Friends was a dangerous title. It came with a level of trust that Brynja wasn't comfortable with. She probably paused a little long than would be comfortable for someone asking that question but eventually she did answer. -Yeah Vio, we can be friends. She lifted a paw and waggled it in the air back towards where she'd found him. You need to rest now.

Aside from the easing of his lumbering strides in wait for her answer, Violarum doesn't think too much into her pause. He is perhaps too simple to really dig deeply into all possibilities of a conversation, and so, his features remain fixated and eager as he slowly increases the distance between them.

'Yeah Vio, we can be friends.' Her words are met with an obviously pleased waggle of his shoulders and twitch of a lip-edge, ears adjusting from anticipation back into a more relaxed state of ease. "Friends," he confirms with a backward glance, disappearing into the scrub of the territory.

-- exit

@Brynja _{— code}

Brynja

She watched him leave with some unease. She didn't know how to be a friend...

Shaking herself free of that Brynja set quickly about cleaning the area up and making the space neat, how she liked it. She could settle back into her own den then, into the solitude shadows, and take a quick stock of the herbs. Her green-grey body, ashen in shadows, broken up by thick black lines, her movements subtle. The flick of her head, the twist of her nose, and under her breath slight sounds as she mumbled out number after number of meticulous counting.

/exit