Bleeding Heart 78 People Skills

"Where did that boy go?" It was the sixth time that someone had asked Dawn that question.

She gave the best answer she had, "He felt it necessary to leave so he did."

It was only natural that her companions felt confused by the sudden disappearance of the young man. He had said he would stay the night with them and was gone before they woke up. It was odd.

But the boy had been odd in general, even by Nix'Rylian standards. He had been rather friendly and yet they had not been able to find out all that much about him.

Dawn pushed thoughts of him away as she climbed up on Zyph to get moving again. Dwelling on it really did no good. The boy was not even connected to the reason why they had come here.

Raven was awfully quiet as he perched beside of her on her steed. Dawn could not really tell what her best friend was thinking, but he did seem to be in deep thought. So they rode in silence all morning as she did not want to disturb him.

Raven was becoming more difficult to understand. Ever since Mem had put him on the path to recovery, he seemed to go into his thoughts more like this. At first, Dawn had chocked it up to him just getting used to being able to see and drinking in everything but it had been a while and he would still do this.

And he had not discussed much of what he was remembering to her either. Other than that bit about his father, there had been none else forthcoming. But it had made her realize that he was remembering his past. She wondered just how much he did remember.

But she did not know how to ask him that. At least not in a polite way. Perhaps Raven was overwhelmed, leading to these periods of long silence. She wished she could help him. Like he helped her. But, she was not sure how to go about doing so in a non-intrusive manner.

People skills had never been her forte. It would probably end up being her biggest shortcoming as queen, just as it had been one of her husband's strengths. Arrion had been able to charm anyone and everyone with his good-natured personality and the easy going smile he would almost always have flitting across his lips. Not that Arrion had always been happy, she had seen him sad before. Arrion had been emotional at times but he would push his own emotions aside to comfort other people first. There had only been once he was so devastated that he could not do so.

Dawn knew that she could never fill her beloved husband's shoes. And she would not even try. Arrion had somehow loved her despite her so glaringly obvious flaws; she was sure that he would not be happy if she tried to just turn herself into a copy of him. Still, she should work on her people skills more.

In the afternoon, Raven perked up a bit. Dawn honestly preferred seeing him like this rather than brooding. So, she engaged him in conversation, "Do you want to talk to me?"

"Of course," A playful smile flittered over the man's lips, "I love talking with my queen."

She smiled, shaking her head. "Okay, well, what do you wish to talk about?"

"You're the one who asked if I wanted to talk." He was laughing silently now, shoulders shaking a little as he tried not to actually make a sound. He had turned his head away, but Dawn could see the quirk of his mouth as it turned up. "What do you want to talk about?"

Dawn looked away unsure of what exactly to say. Then she shook her head and turned to look at him, "How are your memories coming along? You have not really mentioned it all that much lately."

"Ah." His mouth twitched a bit. "My memories? I've a good idea of who I was, but still am not sure of details, I guess. There is a lot about myself I don't exactly recall. But I'm getting there." He looked a bit sad. Then he looked at her, "Anyway, want to talk about Arrion a bit? What was your first impression of him?"

Dawn was taken aback. Even with her dismal skills with people, she got the feeling that Raven did not want to talk about his memories, and that he had just changed the subject. But if he did not wish to speak of it, she would not force it, so she answered his question.

"He seemed trustworthy to me. That may sound a bit odd with my upbringing, but I was at my lowest point in life. Wounded, and all alone in the world. He helped me. It was odd to see such a friendly face but I think that was what made me trust him to take care of me."

"So, you had a good first impression of him?" Raven smiled when she nodded in confirmation, "That's good."