Aegle regarded her friend with an open grin, the very same she had greeted the small faunus with on the day they'd met. Clearly she was quite happy to have introduced someone to the majesty of curry.
"I'll give ya the number." She said happily, not considering that Lily likely lacked the scroll necessary to make use of the restaurant's number. As she crammed the remaining couple of bites into her mouth, she produced her scroll once more. Clumsily pulling it open, she ran her thumbs imprecisely across the clear screen as she traipsed idly in place. Her success in locating what she was looking for coincided nearly perfectly with Lily's second question, the one about the noises her body made. 
"Noise when I..?" She asked, her smile never faltering but her hands suddenly quite still. For a moment, Aegle's gaze grew quizzical and distant, and it seemed as though she would not say anymore. Then her shoulder sagged imperceptibly and the movement was accompanied by a quiet mechanical whine. Hearing the desolate note, recognition and understanding flashed across the orange haired girl's face and her grin redoubled with the joy of overcoming her own confusion.
"Oooooh~" Aegle cooed liltingly, as she rolled her shoulder noisily, filling the small apartment with noise of a decidedly inorganic nature. "Y'mean those noises." 
Lowering her forgotten scroll, Aegle regarded Lily with a puppy-dog smile as she reached up and grabbed at the neck of her hoodie. 
"S'just my brace." She explained, as though that was all the explanation necessary, while she tugged open the neck of her hoodie and revealed a couple of straps which seemed to cross her chest beneath the garment. Then, as if she assumed her explanation had been sufficient, despite providing an answer apt to raise even more questions, Aegle lowered her eyes and resumed searching through her scroll's contacts list. 
"I guess I'm so used to hearin' it that I don't hear it anymore." She remarked idly, as she used both hands to navigate her scroll's glowing screen. "Usually I don't let it run so loud, but I got done trainin' and..." Shrugging, which was a remarkable accomplishment given the unusual set of her shoulders, Aegle glanced back up at Lily, "I dunno, guess I never turned it back down."

Aegle gave no indication that she was especially bothered by Lily's probing, and even assisted in the faunus girl's investigation with a couple of discrete movements to better guide her fingers along the concealed device. She was even a bit amused by it, if her guarded grin was any indication. While it would be wrong to say that she didn't care what people thought of the brace, she'd certainly grown out of the initial self-consciousness which the device had initially instilled in her. Since it's creation, it had become a part of her, as familiar and comfortable as a well worn pair of shoes. She did make efforts to conceal it, but those efforts weren't so much focused on hiding the brace as they were hiding the things the brace failed to alleviate. Things such as her slouch, the hunch in her one shoulder, and set of her feet which, even after seven years, remained slightly pigeon-toed. 
"It kinda is for trainin', I guess." Aegle allowed, still wearing a grin which was slightly more restrained than usual. For as little as discussing the brace bothered her, she was much more conscious of other aspects of her body which were evident from the kind of tactile investigation which Lily was performing. Her baggy fashion sense went a long way towards ameliorating her crooked build and remarkable lack of body mass, but did little to conceal either fact to the touch. And while she was neither ashamed nor embarrassed by the brace, her lack of muscle certainly did trouble Aegle. It was actually one of the few things which caused her any considerable discomfort, along side her incredibly light weight. 
"Though I usually turn it down to train."

Gently drawing away from Lily's touch, Aegle hooked one scarred thumb into the cuff of her opposite sleeve, and yanked the orange fabric a little ways up her forearm. Doing so exposed a second, padded cuff beneath the layer of orange fabric, one which encircled her arm just before the joint of her wrist. The cuff, a polished metal encircling a thin leather pad, lay snugly atop the bandage wraps that covered Aegle's hands, and which extended to the middle of where her flexor pollicus muscle should have been. 
"I train alone." Aegle told the faunus girl, "But I wouldn't mind sparring a little. It would be nice to see what a wilder can do, too." She yanked her sleeve indelicately back into place, then pulled both hands into tight fists that caused the bandages joints to pop loudly.
"I don't got much of a style though..." Aegle continued, as she reached up with one hand and rubbed her crooked shoulder, "And I ain't much to judge other huntsman by." She uncurled her fists, to the quiet protest of even more popping from her bandaged joints.
"Most huntsman use weapons..." She explained as her green gaze moved from the feline faunus to her hands. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she began massaging her knuckles through the cloth that covers them. "Swords and axes and hammers and stuff."
Changing hands, Aegle paid particular attention to the knuckles on her index and middle fingers, both of which were noticeably thicker than the others, even through the wrappings.
"I tried swords for a while, but never really got the hang of it." Aegle glanced at Lily and shrugged mildly, before quietly adding, "My grip was never strong enough." While her explanation was technically accurate, it failed to convey the exact degree of her deficiency, and wholly left out the months upon months she'd spent trying to overcome it. Next, the orange haired girl shook both hands out, and lifted her attention once again. Even now, if one paid close attention to Aegle's hands, it was clear they lacked even the rudimentary strength required to wield a weapon of nominal size. 
"So I mostly just punch things." 
Interestingly enough, she never did get around to telling Lily what her brace was for. In fact, entirely unintentionally, she had changed the subject. 

While it was hard to deny that Aegle had led an atypical life, it was no stretch to say she'd lived a simple life as well. For all the negatives and hurdles set before her, her's had at least been a linear existence, wherein she was forever pushing ahead. Such a life, straight forward as it was, did not leave much opportunity for surprises, and what few surprises it did contain could usually be plowed through with the same direct abandon with which Aegle managed the rest of her existence. For the most part, her methodology had served her well. However it was by no means perfect. For one thing, when ever events conspired to both genuinely surprise Aegle, as well as preclude a straight forward solution, the young girl was often left wholly stumped as of how to react. Which is much how things turned out when Lily moved in to give Aegle a hug.

Now Aegle was not, as a rule, opposed to hugs; She was actually known to hug her family members on occasion. Neither was she bothered by invasions of her personal space the way other girls her age tended to be, as there was nothing quite like numerous prolonged stays in the hospital to break down all sense of modesty and privacy. She wasn't even particularly defensive of people being too close to her, having yet to develop the huntsman's covetous regard for personal security. What Aegle did have, however, was an acute awareness of how her body felt to the touch. It was all sharp angles and jabbing protrusions, a landscape of taught skin, crooked bones, and gaunt shallows where muscle should have been. A cousin had once commented that hugging Aegle was like hugging a skeleton that had lost all its flesh, and it was a comparison that even Aegle appreciated as rather apt. So while she didn't especially mind hugs, not mind being close to strangers, nor even being in intimate contact with them, she rather preferred to be the one doing the hugging. 

Thus, when Lily caught Aegle off guard and came in for a hug, the surprised human's only response was to tense up as her brain rushed to catch up with the intrusion on her person. She endured Lily's hold in that fashion without protest or resistance, though the faunus girl also did not hold the hug nearly long enough for Aegle's fighter's instincts to kick in. While it was unlikely that she would have tried to hurt the feline girl for her faux pas, Aegle knew more than one way to put a premature end to an unwanted embrace.

By the time the faunus girl pulled away, she left her human hostess considerably tenser and visibly unsettled. Aegle's smile had vanished and while the look which had replaced it couldn't quite be called a scowl, it still betrayed uncertainty which looked markedly out of place on her pale face. With as open as she was, there was no mistaking the conflict between, Aegle's amicable nature and the perceived intrusion against her personal space, as it played out in her expression. Her reaction probably wouldn't have been so strong if it had just been the hug. A hug, while unpleasant, would probably have simply earned Lily a huffy scowl.

Combine it with the look which had been on Lily's face as she delivered it, however...


After all, while Aegle was not Remnant's most perceptive inhabitant, she knew that look all too well. A look that Aegle had seen so often and on so many different faces that she couldn't help but notice it. A look that said someone had just realized there was something wrong with Aegle; That she wasn't just strange or weird or different, but that she was fundamentally broken. It was a look that condensed surprise and revulsion all into a single glance. It was a look full of pity and sympathy, each as unwanted as they were unnecessary. It was a look that set Aegle on edge and raised her hackles. If not for that look, she might not have even needed to bother wearing oversized clothes the way she did. If not for that look, she might not have been so compelled to hide the oddity of her body, and the life changing technology that let her live with it.

"S'alright..." Aegle answered Lily automatically, barely even hearing the raven haired girl's apology. Her cheeks began to flush, while the blood and warmth drained from her hands and feet. She heard her heart start to throb in her ears, and could feel its quickened pulse in her veins. She found her mouth dry, and felt the nearly autonomic compulsion to avert her eyes, and it was for that reason that she made absolutely certain to maintain eye contact with Lily. "It's fine..." she reiterated, as if repeating herself might make the words true. As guileless as her face was, it couldn't hold a candle to her voice, which was even more expressive. Her tone was shaky, her words clipped and her voice strained. Aegle had missed out on more than a little emotional growth in her youth; Between the tests and treatments, there hadn't been a lot of time for growing up and getting to know herself. So it was a real credit to her innately amiable, easy going nature that she didn't let even more of her emotions broil forth. It was to her nature's additional credit that she actually tried to calm herself down, instead of feeding the self-satisfying anger that might have guaranteed a premature end to her newest blossoming friendship. Aegle relaxed her hands from the fists they had pulled into, and exercised a careful breathing technique she usually reserved for the heat of battle.
"I'm fine." This was said with markedly more confidence than before, though there was also a willful, brutish force behind it as well. It was as though, but saying those two words, Aegle wasn't just telling Lily she was fine, but actually ordering herself to be fine. It seemed to work too. After all, what Aegle may have lacked in self-control, she more than made up for in determination. Now while Aegle's determination to rapidly get over Lily's transgression might have been seen as both sensible and adult, it was really almost the exact opposite. Aegle wasn't making herself calm down out of any sense of self-possession or maturity. Instead, she was doing it for the same of simple, wrong headed pride. Much like she had stared right at Lily when the shame had made her want to do the exact opposite, now she made herself settle down specifically because Lily's actions had upset her. She was, in fact, refusing to let Lily's unsolicited sympathy and pity rile her up, purely out of spite. 

Then, as sudden as sunrise, a smile abruptly blossomed on Aegle's lips.
"I ain't gonna go easy on you when we spar." She said, her strained words giving way to her usual boisterous and amiable demeanor. She showed Lily a wolfish smile, one which showed entirely too many teeth, "Just cause I'm a cripple don't mean I can't whup yer butt."
And just like that, all suggestion that Lily had managed to crack through Aegle's shield of obliviousness and actually upset the immature young girl underneath, vanished without a trace. 

When asked what they should do next, Aegle merely answered with a shrug, which was markedly more impressive than it sounds, given just how difficult it was for the crooked girl to shrug at all. 
"I dunno. Usually by now I've only just gotten home, which usually means tryin' to do some homework or tweakin' the Oupis." Aegle glanced at the cluttered work table beside Lily's seat and spread her hands absently. She dropped her hands back to her side and glanced around the room, until her eyes finally alighted on a small clock, half covered under dirty clothes. 
"Still a little while till my evening work out." She observed, after walking over and kicking the clothes off to get a better look at the time. 
"What d'ya wanna do?"

The smile, so recently returned to Aegle's face, faltered when Lily returned to the topic she'd made such a concerted effort to abandon. It was really a credit to her affable, if often oblivious, nature that it didn't vanish entirely. Still, she wasn't at all happy that the faunus girl had decided to push the issue, and that fact couldn't have been more obvious from the strained aspect her expression took on. Things were certainly not helped when Lily told her what would have happened to Aegle had she born out in the wilds instead of in Legion. Especially not when one considered the fact that Aegle was already knew. Worse still, she knew the outcome would have been nearly as dismal if she had been born in any of the other three kingdoms, as well. It was not the sort of thing she required any kind of reminder on. 

By the time she was done, even the balm Lily had tried to apply at the last moment wasn't quite enough to salvage her choice in subject matter. Aegle had received similar assurance before. She'd had doctors and family tell her how strong she was and marvel at what a brave girl she must be, and always right before or right after they told her something awful. She might not have been the brightest girl in Remnant, but even Aegle could follow a pattern that obvious, and it was hard for her not to read Lily's own assurances as disingenuous as a result. 

"Yeah... We should definitely do that..." Aegle said finally, her smile almost entirely gone. She was no longer sure how to progress. All her instincts were in conflict and all she really knew was that she wanted this conversation to be over. 
"Some other time..." She could already feel herself wanting to get angry, to rage against Lily's comments without really understanding what exactly the faunus girl had said to upset her. On a purely intellectual level, Aegle wanted to give Lily the benefit of the doubt and trustingly assumed the faunus girl hadn't been trying to upset her. That trust only extended so far, however, and Aegle's limited capacity to rationalize her own emotions kept her from reigning those emotions in. Thus, while was sure Lily hadn't been trying to be hurtful, she still felt hurt by the things the feline girl had said. Only adding to the emotional unease which she felt was Aegle's own frustration at being unable to understand where her emotions were coming from and why she suddenly felt the way she did. So, like she did whenever confronted with something she didn't understand, Aegle defaulted to her tried and true method for dealing with the world.
"I think I'm actually gonna get started exercisin' a bit early tonight..." She tried to force a smile, but her heart plainly wasn't in it. She glanced at the punching bag set up in the corner of her room and, in a strangely vulnerable motion, gave her own slender frame a half hug. "If y'don't mind... I train alone." As she said this, Aegle moved across the room and once again opened her door. The message was clear. Even though her tone had remained amiable and friendly, her body language and expression told a much different story. She wanted Lily to leave, and she was trying to get her to do so in the gentlest way she knew how. 
"Try not to get lost, yeah? S'a big city..."