Aegle's hands curled and uncurled from fists, made heavy and brutal looking by the thick wrappings around her knuckles. Many huntsman cultivated a connection with their baser instincts in order to sharpen their reflexes and serrate their ferocity in battle. It was for this reason that some huntsman found it very easy to resolve all their problems with violence. Aegle would, at a glance, fit this particular mold quite well. She was not a smart girl, even by the most generous metric imaginable, had spent years assiduously eroding anything that so much as resembled restraint, and possessed of a small, not unwarranted, reputation for impulsive and reckless behavior. In combat, it meant she could react before she even consciously understood what was happening around her, which was fortunate given her limited capacity for understanding just about anything.

It didn't just manifest in combat either, this utterly thoughtless and uninhibited behavior. Indeed, Guin had already been on the receiving end of Aegle intensely visceral, wholly mercurial approach to the world. So when her demeanor shifted from that of a kicked puppy, rapidly, to that of a concerned confidant, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Say something about Aegle Vitus; Say she was predictable in her unpredictability. Regarding the taller gir as she toyed with the fountain water, Aegle's mollified expression shifted to one of muted sympathy. 
"Huh."
Aegle, with some difficulty, set herself down on the edge of the fountain beside Guinevere. She kept her distance, after a fashion, not interfering with sophomore's gentle manipulation of the water's surface at least. She was silent for a few moments longer, and rocked idly back and forth, balancing with her feet off the ground like a bored child. Her expression was anything but impatient however. Instead, there was a searching intensity in her gaze, made nearly comical by the evident vacuousness of her attention. 

Several seconds passed and still, Aegle said nothing. She only watched Guin. Watched her and balanced restively on her perch, her raised feet ever moving to keep her from toppling forward or back. Naturally, a quiet mechanic whir accompanied every movement. Each correction and over-correction and over-correction to an over-correction, each with its own distinct motorized voice. It should have been profoundly irritating, a constant cacophony of small mechanical noises at the very edge of hearing, but Aegle didn't seem to notice. Truth was, she was scarcely conscious of how noisy she was, just for moving, and only ever noticed all the strange noises her body made when her attention was specifically directed to them. So the noise and the silence and the staring persisted. 

After spending nearly the entire conversation on her forward foot, constantly pressing and pigeonholing Guin, it might have seemed a bit unusual for Aegle to neglect her initiative, and allow the older girl to rally. Indeed it was rather uncommon for her not to be the one driving whatever conversation she was involved in, even if it was only driving them into the ground. Yet there she was, actually thinking about what she was going to say. That was another almost unprecedented occurrence, for Aegle seldom spared so much as a single thought for the things that passed her lips, much less made a concerted effort to express her thoughts cleary and cogently. It was the sheer unfamiliarity of such territory which had stymied her into silence in the first place. All the while that she'd been watching Guin, her restive teetering serenading everyone in ear shot, she'd been trying to think of the best way to express the idea that had just come into her head. It was unsurprising when Guinevere, offered a rare reprieve from the usual onslaught of interacting with Aegle for the first time, acted quickly enough to wrest the reigns from the orange haired girl. With a question that couldn't have derailed Aegle's train of thought any better, had it been two cows and a semi truck laid directly in its path. 

"Engines?" Aegle repeated, her face pinched in confusion where, before, it had worn what served her for a thoughtful expression. With a shifting of gears that was nearly audible, she refocused on trying to puzzle out just what Guinevere was talking about. Then, in an instant of revelatory understanding so profound, it was nearly accompanied by a cartoonish 'ding', understanding washed across Aegle's face. 
"Ooooh, Y'meant motors."


It should be mentioned that Aegle was not as oblivious to her own shortcomings, be they physical, emotional and especially intellectual, as might have been expected. She understood her limitations quite well, in fact. Well enough that she would have never, not in a million years, have ever presumed herself to be smarter than someone else. This bears mentioning because what Aegle said next, without any intervening thought, was not meant to be condescending, but rather a sincere offer of vital information. Whether Guin took it as such was another story entirely...
"Engines," Aegle explained, with the solemn surety of a child reciting something their parents had told them, which wasn't all that far from the reality, "Turn heat energy into force energy. Motors turn electric energy into force energy."
Then, to provide and example, Aegle lifted her arm and produced a few motorized chirps for Guinevere, bending it at the elbow.
"See?" She asked, truly, honestly, sincerely not trying to be condescending, even a little bit, "Motors, right?"
Dropping her arm back down, Aegle grinned at Guinevere in blithe self satisfaction, showing off every one of her teeth in the process.
"S'just my brace." 
The idea that she might have raised more questions with her explanation than she answered, or that Guin might not intuitively know what sort of 'brace' she was referring to, never crossed Aegle's mind. 

"I knew a girl once with this really cold aura," Then, with an dissonant shift in topic, on so abrupt that it carried the risk of whiplash, Aegle blithely resumed the thoughts which Guinevere's question had put on hold. "She couldn't control it either. Whenever she cried, you could watch the frost formin' on her glasses and clothes." 
Aegle's tone, while it couldn't have been called gentle or respectful, lowered a little bit as she shared this somewhat disparate narrative. She regarded Guinevere closely as she spoke, her emerald eyes staring deep into the older girl's forest green. 
"She cried a lot." The smaller girl explained as she resumed her restive teetering, filling the air once again when the sweet music of numerous tiny, irritating, whining motors. Then Aegle fell silent again, and with the same air of contemplation for which she was so ill suited. This silence was short lived however. Ever one for being direct, even if direct was synonymous with crude or painful, Aegle really couldn't think of a good way to ask her next question, so she just blurted it out in one go.
"Did somethin' really sad happen to you too?"

"That's good." Aegle commented mildly, though her smile was noticeably emboldened by Guin's answer. "I'd hate for it t'be otherwise..." 
It was a small statement, said with just about the same irreverence that seemed to characterize much of Aegle's behavior, but no less sincere and honest for all that. Most people didn't feel it was necessary to say such things out loud, to inform their neighbor that they'd sooner not have bad things happen to them, as if such sentiment should have gone without saying. Aegle, on the other hand, had never said anything which she didn't believe to be entirely true, and her assurance, that she would not want something bad to have happened to Guinevere, was not indifferent or trite, but wholly genuine. She solemnly would have been upset if something bad had happened to the older girl. Furthermore, she was genuinely relieved that something bad hadn't happened, as she'd initially intuited from past experience with people who couldn't control their auras. 
"M'glad yer alright."
And with that, Aegle pushed herself off the edge of the fountain and shot Guinevere a toothy grin, one which managed to show off just about every tooth in her head.
"Gotta go get trainin'." She said softly, flexing her fists momentarily as she turned away from the older girl. She only got a couple of steps though, before turning partly back around and looking meaningfully in Guinevere's direction.
"Nice meetin' ya." Aegle told her, again with utterly unaffected honesty. Not just a farewell, but an honest one, delivered as solemnly as the strange young girl seemed capable of. "Thanks for lookin' after Lily, yeah?" 

And with that, Aegle swung around, showed Guin the back of one fist, and started away.