Raven smiled to himself when he heard kids' voices. It was reflex and as soon as his brain caught completely up it vanished. What were kids doing here? He was somewhat confused but he was sure that if he just waited a bit and listened then he would be able to figure it out.
The kids were subdued in their speech and from their tone he figured that they were weary. They were definitely natives to this land. Raven wished that he could see them as he was sure they were all very adorable. Kids usually were.
The thoughts surprised Raven, he had not really remembered that he had liked kids until he had been near them. At this sudden realization that he really knew very little about himself, Raven just zoned out.
He tried to lay out in his mind what all he did know about himself. He liked animals, and apparently children too. He had been trained to fight and was good at strategics. He had a deep-seated idea of policies and what worked and did not work. And he knew his very first pet had been a wolf named Whiskens. But other than that, he drew blanks. He could not remember who his best friend had been or if he had even had one. Nor could he even remember the name of that girl he had maybe been in love with.
Raven took a deep breath trying to calm himself down. It really did not matter, not really. At least he had learned something new about himself. He liked kids. Nothing wrong with that and it really should not surprise him that much, it seemed actually rather natural to him. Now he was just confusing himself though as his thoughts seemed to be going around in circles.
He moved closer to the area in which they were sitting as they ate and smiled in the direction that they were in. He had heard what their names were, but he was not sure which was which but it did clue him in to how many there were even though not all of them had actually said anything. Five. There were five of them. He ran the names in his head. Rex, Lyta, Sap, Thorn, and Jem.
"Did you need something mister?" The boyish voice was the one that had introduced them, so that would mean it would be Rex.
"Not exactly," Raven leaned towards them, his lips still turned upwards, "I just wanted to learn to distinguish you."
"What?" Now the boy looked confused.
"I wanted to learn your voices." Raven clarified.
Dawn's voice came from behind him, "Raven is blind so he can't just distinguish you by sight. He has to put names to voices instead."
"Oh!" Now it was one of the females. Younger than the male had been. "I've never met a blind man before."
"That's because they don't live very long out here, Thorn." This voice was hard to tell the gender of but Raven thought it was a high-pitched boy voice.
"Sap!" It was the other female, who sounded aghast at what he had said, "Careful with your words." So if the other female had been Thorn this one should be Lyta.
The last of the kids, who had to be Jem, then spoke softly, "Don't worry Lyta, I don't think he is going to get mad at us over this. He's smiling. The real kind."
Raven laughed, "Your right, young one. I like children too much to let some simple words get to me. Especially when they were innocently said."
He heard Dawn's snort behind him, but he ignored it. The queen though sat beside of him. She was probably curious about the kids as well.
Raven kept his attention on the children. He wondered at their sudden silence. Dawn was not that scary surely. Well, maybe she was. He had no idea what facial expression the queen made so he had no idea if her face added an extra layer of intimidation on it. He sort of understood that her voice could come off as intimidating, but she was really just unsure of how to talk to people. He had seen that in how much she could actually care.
Dawn could be sweet and she actually was rather kind at heart. Just not many people got to see that side of her.