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Jay nodded at her mystification at being called ma'am. He guessed she was in her late twenties, but he'd rather be overly polite to the woman he had just met than not polite enough. She had a look of something like a sheriff about the way she stood. "I don't sing," he told her, not wanting to weigh her down with the whys of it. That he could sing like a bird on a line if he wanted to, but just couldn't bring it out of himself. But he carried a sadness when he said it. "But you ain't as bad as you're makin' yourself out t'be, from the little I heard. Didn't mean to interrupt your walk." "Aw, well, that's a pity," Inez replied, registering his sadness but not sure what to make of it as she doesn't know him, well, at all. "Bu they, with your great playin' y'might just attract someone t'be your songbird," she said, looking for a silver lining. "An' you weren't interruptin' much, I promise. Just lookin' for a little peace of mind, it can get kinda... busy in there, heh," she added with a chuckle. "Where are you from, Jay?" she asked, figuring it was probably closer to her neck of the woods than where they currently were located, but wanting to be polite and not assuming anything. "Maybe so," he said to her with a grimace, feathers ruffling slightly. Jay had spent so long with them bound down against his back that he hadn't yet learned the little body language tics his wings gave him. "An' back home I thought a house o' nine other people was bad enough," he agreed with her as he moved to stand. "I'm from Kentucky, Cumberland County," he told her with a pain through his heart at the thoughts of home. "I'm guessin' you're a country girl too, Miss...?" He asked to prompt her for her name. Singing with someone should at least get some sort of name, he figured. "Uh, Inez," she repeated, though she'd been singing just before that and startled him so she just chalked it up to that. "An' yeah, I'm from Texas originally, though I ain't been back home for a spell," Inez admitted with a frown and a little sigh. "Kentucky's real nice though, I've done some jobs there, been a few years or so but I remember it well enough." She gave him a small smile and was about to ask him what he did when he realized, well, he had wings, so. "A flyer, then, are ya? Don't ask how I guessed that one," she said with a little chuckle and a wink. Jay didn't realize that Inez had already told him her name. It'd been hard to focus lately. He nodded at her compliments to Kentucky and the confirmation she was Texan. He'd guessed as much, sure, but he would have been off. "Not supposed to be doin' much flyin' lately, but that's right," Jay confirmed, flexing a wing so that Inez could see the teal vet wrap on the radiale joints in his wings. "So many mutations I wouldn't know where t'start guessin' with you," he said, inviting her to tell him, as he moved to stand. "Yeah, there's a lotta us here for sure, an' a lotta different ones, so I can't fault y'there," she admitted. "I'm just a plain enhanced human, I reckon you'd say... extra strength, stamina, speed," Inez said, counting off on her fingers. "Nothin' too fancy but I'm a good hand to have in a brawl," she chuckled. "Sorry that you're hurt," she added after seeing the wrap on his wings. "I hope it won't keep you grounded for too long?" "There's something plain about all that?" Jay said with a raised eyebrow and a low, oriole-like whistle. "Coulda fooled me." What was this sort of place where that was run-of-the-mill? Some old part of him he was still learning to silence thought like laughing in God's face. "And I should be set soon. They say they just gotta reteach the healing factor- whatever that is- to heal straight and not sprained." "Well, y'know," she drawled with a smirk. "What can I say, everythin's bigger in Texas, I reckon I might be a little biased," she chuckled. "Ahh, well, I ain't much for that kinda thing, I'll be real honest, but if someone's tellin' y'that then they know what's goin' on and you'll be right as rain in no time flat, I'd wager." |
