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Twig likes to explore the areas they rest the Inn, likes to check out their ‘new backyard’ in every place they go. Often one of the guys will join her, and they’ll walk around, looking for frogs, checking out the plants, overturning rocks to see what kinds of bugs are underneath them.
Today, it was just Twig and Pigtunia. Twig didn’t mind being on her own, anymore; now that she has friends and her lonely moments are few and far between, it’s nice to spend time with just Pigtunia. She loves the guys! But things can get a little hectic with them– which she also loves! It’s just–
It’s nice, to just exist on her own, not worrying about what her friends are thinking, or trying to think of things to say. When Twig is on her own, she can just… be.
Twig likes to touch the plants, likes to feel the texture of them beneath her hands. She loves flowers, loves to trace their petals with her fingertips, carefully, to not damage them.
She likes to breathe in the air, fresh and green, free of the fey magics she’s so used to. She spent a long, long time on her own in the Feywild, and though she loved her home and all the people she met, all the things she did, it was… Nice, to get to experience something new. To breathe in unfamiliar air, to see things she’s never seen before.
Pigtunia snuffles along the ground, dust flying around her nose, enough to make her sneeze. Twig giggles at the sight, and swings her tail over Pigtunia to dust off some of the dirt.
Then her gaze catches on something smooth, and she crouches down to get a better look.
It’s a smooth rock, not quite a pebble, but not much larger than a silver coin. Twig picks it up, and turns it over in her hands. It’s dusty, and hard, much like one would expect a rock to be, but there are stripes of red mixed among the grey that race across the surface. Twig rubs it in the hem of her skirt, cleaning the dust away for a better look.
It’s beautiful.
She stands, idly tapping the rock with her fingernails as she keeps walking.
She’ll keep it. It will look nice on her shelves.
When she gets back to the Inn, she cleans the rock with soap and water, loving how the wetness makes the colours pop. She displays the rock in the sitting room, lining it up just right with the other rocks on the shelf.
Frost tilts his head at it from his position on the couch. “That’s pretty. Where’d you find it?”
“Outside!” Twig chirps, jumping off of her stepladder and skipping over to the tabaxi. “I’m making a collection!”
“I can see that,” Frost says, eyeing the dozen or so rocks lined up on the shelf. “Perhaps you’d like one of mine?”
Twig gasps. “You have rocks?!”
Frost just smiles and reaches into his pack, which is never far from his side. His arm digs all the way down, before he pulls it out, and props a little rock on his palm-pad. It’s beige, and square-ish, not quite the perfect shape, with a slight slope to it. It’s smooth, the top and bottom almost perfectly flat, and it has little rings of brown and black that mark it's surface.
“Wow,” Twig breathes. “And I can have it?”
Frost nods. “A gift.”
Twig furrows her brows. “Okay… But now I gotta give you one of mine.”
“Ah, I forgot about that– no, you don’t have to. In the material plane, a gift doesn't require something of equal or greater value to be offered in return.”
“Oh! That seems like a flawed system,” Twig says, nonetheless taking the rock.
Frost hums. “Yes, quite flawed. Go ahead, where are you going to put that one?”
With a grin, Twig bounces over to her stepladder. She hems and haws, looking along her line of rocks, before ultimately deciding to place it on the far left. She looks back at Frost, finding him watching on with amusement.
“Great choice.”
“Thanks, Frost!” Twig says, smiling at him.