Date with the Delivery Mare

Brisk debated putting on her seatbelt. It wasn't exactly a pony friendly car, but it didn't matter. Emanuel turned the key and she found herself smiling as the engine rumbled to life. It wasn't like the electric vans she drove at work, or her boring government car. This one had character, emotion when it groaned back into the car equivalent of consciousness. Emanuel put his hand on the stick shift and then looked around, less than a second spent looking at the mirrors before he glanced back at Brisk and their eyes met.

Something they seemed to keep on doing.

A silent struggle took place. Across his face, as it seemingly appeared to strike him that there was a pony in his car, meanwhile, Brisk was suddenly hit by the fact that she'd just gotten into his car. She wanted to say something, anything, but the moment swiftly slipped away from her.

"So. Uh, seatbelt?" He ventured. His eyes darting to the apparatus for a split second and then settling back on her. His spare hand, the one not on the stick shift, went to his pocket.

She lit up the buckle with her aura, tugging it loosely out of its fitting. "Won't really fit." She smiled, "Drive safe?"

"Willdo." Then he pulled out the flip phone from earlier. A moment passed as he finagled with it, and Brisk kept herself from sticking her muzzle into his personal space to see what he was doing. Supposedly, humans don't like that.

It beeped, and then loudly said "Turn lef-" before He cut it off.

"Nope. Shush." He said to the phone, the volume now silenced. "You wanna play navigator?"

Brisk tilted her head and flopped her ears to the side as he held his phone over to her. Not that she knew what he meant, but she scooped it up out of his hand with her magic. He made a weird face when her aura brushed against him, but didn't say anything. Then Brisk saw the map on the tiny screens, and the directions. ooooh, navia- I get it.

He turned back to he mirrors, skipping looking out of the rearview, and put the car in reverse. He drove smoothly, pushing the car between reverse and drive in one fluid motion that led Brisk wondering when exactly the transition happened. He pulled out of the parking lot. Brisk remembered that she was supposed to be telling him where to go. Luckily, he seemed to have remembered where to turn out, she looked down at the tiny screen and managed her balance as the car rocked her a little.

It was a low car and she could see out the window. Brisk found her voice as she worked the screen. It wasn't nearly as sensitive to her magic as her pad was, calling up over the rumble she asked, "So where are we going?"

"A drive in place called sonic. Anyways-" His hand reached up from the stick shift and poked a dial on the mess of features on the dashboard. Something lit up and Brisk was flashbanged by the sound of a guitar riff and the almost raspy voice of a male vocalist. Brisk hadn't touched human music, not in anything other than passing. Though, she'd liked what she heard, majoritively the energy behind it.

She'd stayed away from music in general because there was so much of it. In so many patterns, humans use music for everything too, they listen to it when they're down, when they're happy, to feel either when they weren't, to pass the time, to energize themselves, to find inspiration. Everything, and there was so much of it, and all of it at the tip of her hooves whenever she wanted to look it up on the internet. She never knew where to start, and never made the time to sit down and do the subject justice, now she was getting another blast from the culture.

Rock. Probably, something new, as far as she could tell. "Oh-" The phone rumbled, "Turn right at the light!"

He flipped on a blinker, bopping his head with the beat and mouthing the words. Again, Brisk noticed how smooth he was driving. She'd quickly gotten used to something her working buddies had referred to as 'driver dissonance' where she was hyper aware of how someone else was driving a car she was in. All the little shifts and bumps drew her attention, comfortably filling up her senses. She kept looking out at the moving lights, the other cars, all the people that were going by.

It was funny, in a way, she'd met more people on the road than she'd met in person. All sorts had all kinds of different ways of expressing who they were on the road, both the good and he bad. Some people stopped a little extra longer than necessary to let someone go past. Some people would drive in front of you really fast, not to get where they were going faster, just so that they could be in front of you.

After she gave the next instruction, the song came to an end with one long vibrating guitar cord. Brisk leaned herself all the way over as he took a greenlit right turn and the map showed a straight line for a few minutes. She pulled the armrest down with her magic and propped herself up on it and looked at him, hoping it was enough of a prompt, since she couldn't think of anything to say.

"Acceleracers." Was his response, after he caught her staring. "The song, that is, it's an OST I stole off the internet."

"Stole?"

"Le-ga-lly." Was his response. "It's only stealing if you get caught, and it's free to listen to. Pretty sure it's not proper piracy unless I sell it? But hell if I know, I wouldn't care anyways." He waved his hand and then moved the shift back down as they coasted.

"What's it about?"

"The song?"

"Mhm."

"Well, its from a movie series that I never stopped liking. Something from a little bit of a golden era of television in twenty eight to twelve. The song itself is- okay this is gonna be a bit silly. So- context." He gestured out with his hand in a line. "Acceleracers, movies about cars, racing, etc. About as cut and dry as you can get with a premise, there's this character named Vert Wheeler."

Brisk snorted. "I've heard of on the nose."

"Points for originality." He pointed at the stereo, "That's his theme. Pretty much, the story is a bit more complicated, but it's the technical vibe."

Brisk settled. Holding her hooves around the armrest and electing to keep asking questions. He talked when she asked, and asking was easy, just pick a thing she didn't know and ask. She didn't have to think past that, hoping at the very least that he didn't spot her shutting her brain off, since she was listening, it was just easier this way.

"What's it about? Besides racing."

He smiled, "Well... Really only that. And also alien gods, who like racing. Alien robots, who are built to race. Alternate dimensions, built for racing." He chuckled at his own tiny play at misdirection. "Cars, a bunch of world building, characters, mostly. The whole series is split between the characters doing things, and then the racing."

She smiled and put on her best subtle sarcasm tone. "Sounds like it's about racing."

He shot right back with the same. "Uhuh-and where am I going next Ms. Navigator?"

"It's a straight shot, on the left."

"Ooo~ Turning through traffic. My favorite." He tapped the wheel, "Before I blast you with music again, you- okay, probably incoming strange question, but we're on the subject. You like cars?" He asked, half rhetorically.

"Yes." She chirped, to let him continue.

"How do you feel about racing? If there's any yay or nay? Or more of a, 'haven't had the time'?"

Brisk thought for a second. "I dunno. Sounds interesting, but- yeah. I guess I wouldn't know."

He just nodded his head and poked the dial again. This time, electrical noises, a rapid beat, something that reminded Brisk of a different cultural musical style. Which was yet another thing about music Brisk never found time to sift through. Not only was music vastly nuanced in meaning and style an- well, pretty much everything. Different regions had their entire own version of direction when it came to making music in general.

Regardless, Brisk found her body subtly responding to the snazzy beat. It was unlike anything she would have ever heard in Equestria; Emanuel was certainly enjoying it, she kept hearing his voice, quietly peaking through the audio as he sang some of the words; Brisk wondered if he was as nervous as she was. Wondered if he wasn't singing he whole thing- and she could tell he knew all he words, he was mouthing them, only singing a few.

Brisk was unsure. She didn't know.

That was... what he offered his hand for.

Her mind focused back on that moment. He seized her up, called her out for what was going on at the table, called them both out, and then offered something different. This was that. The... difference. Brisk tried not to think about it, she closed her eyes and bounced her head to the music. Her attempted mental peace was interrupted as Emanuel shouted "WEEE!" and dove the car to the left through traffic.

Brisk caught her breath as the g-forces tried to pull her away from the armrest. Hear heartbeat shot up as her brain reminded her that she was sitting inside of what a few ponies had dubbed, 'deathmobile.' The fact that it was so exciting, and the fact that she wished it hadn't stopped when it was over notwithstanding to her concern.

She looked up at him, he didn't seem to notice her internal quandaries about safety, though, they were safe. No longer in the road, pulling into a parking lot with a building sitting inside it. Over it? She hadn't seen a fancy building outside before. The big, flashy, angular signs listed the name of the place, exactly as Emanuel had said.

Brisk took a second look. "Isn't it kinda small?"

"Hmm?" He asked back, still focusing on the 'parking' part of driving.

The building itself had a few tables around it, unattended due to the weather, and lack of any kind of shielding from the elements. It looked... smaller than her town house, this is meant to be a restaurant? Brisk was stuck to staring for an answer from Emanuel. "You ever been to a drive in?"

The car didn't jerk as it stopped, at least Brisk didn't feel it stop. Emanuel was a good driver.

"No? What's... it looks like a gas station." Brisk hefted herself over the armrest and looked for herself. Right next to the window on Emanuel's side was a menu. It held the same extravagance that humans usually applied while marketing something and almost immediately got visually swallowed by the presentations. It was just far away enough for her to have to squint through the imperceptibly dirty window along with the words being just tiny enough to be a struggle to read.

Emanuel pressed a single finger into the glass, "See the big red button and the speaker?"

Brisk's mind connected the dots, "Ooh! It's like a drive through that you park at." She nodded to herself in satisfaction. "I get it now, what do they have?"

"You a smoothie girl?" He asked, eyeing her up a little oddly while leaning away ever so slightly.

Brisk lost her smile, only realizing she was smiling when she tried to reign herself in. She had leaned all the way over, her head was hovering over his lap. So she backed up with a nervous chuckle. "I like sugary things, so long as it's not... like... fruity? Humans have really weird interpretations of fruit flavors." Contain yourself, just a little bit Brisk. Don't be weird.

It wasn't like Brisk struggled with personal space. She wasn't that kind of excitable. She could see the boundaries, she just got focused on other things, or would get distracted. Call it a lack of spatial awareness. If she wasn't focusing on physical space, it may as well have not been relevant.

"We do?"

Brisk blinked, having forgotten what he was responding to. "Oh- uhm. Yeah, like, what even is watermelon flavored gum?"

Emanuel leaned his head back in realization. "Ah, well, people tend to name things rudimentarily. Then following that, they adjust the flavor for selling value, and then keep the name the same." He made a half dismissive half 'so-so' gesture with his hand. "Over the years, the name starts to be associated with the flavor everyone tastes when they buy the thing, so stuff like 'watermelon' and 'banana' are just so far removed from the actual taste that it does really need a different name."

Emanuel finished his tiny rant by rolling down the window near the menu. As soon as it was all the way down, he reached out of the car and pressed the button. His other hand gestured for her to wait a moment and the hand that pressed the button came down to rest where the window was hidden. There was a crackle, and a voice came out from the speaker, all cheery, but still somehow sounding vaguely half asleep.

"Hello! Welcome to Sonic! What can I get for you?"

Emanuel's whole posture changed, he straightened up, his voice got lighter to as he leaned a little closer to the window. "Hello-! Hello~ can I get a pair of mozzi sticks and a pair of smoothies, one peanut, one crème?"

Brisk's mind spontaneously turned against her, wondering if she had gained an allergy to peanuts sometime between the last time she had peanuts and now. Brisk took a deep breath as the voice in the menu talked. She chuckled slightly to herself as she eyed up her beanie in the rearview mirror. Get a hold of yourself Brisk. You're not going to spontaneously develop an allergy. Shaking your head and rolling your eyes at yourself while talking to yourself in your own head was probably some kind of sign of something.

Should be fine though.

Brisk was brought back to the moment as Emanuel turned to face her. "So-" Then... then he stopped.

Eyes met. Both of them stared for a split second.

Brisk tried the usual, "So?" Not that she had anything to add.

Emanuel blushed. She could see it well enough through the exotic lighting from the drive in.

"Soooo~ I'm a numpty who forgot how the flappy bits in my mouth to make words." He laughed at himself. Brisk did him the favor of chuckling too, not that it wasn't funny. She was only stressing about the exact same problem while trying to viscerally turn the gears in her own head trying to find a response.

"Regarding my chronic foot-in-mouth diseases, do you mind if we... lose all the- I mean, I kinda already did it." He shrugged, trying to emphasize most of his meaning through body language. Now that Brisk had been studying how he moved, the action stood out as unnatural. He was nervous. "Shouting 'weee' while turning through traffic isn't super-respectable."

"I thought it was kinda cute." Brisk offered.

"I saw you clutch the armrest like you were about to go out the window." He shot back.

Brisk felt heat rising to her face; not that he'd be able to tell through her fur. She had done that, despite it not affecting her opinion of his silliness. She liked silly. "You were driving so smoothly, it just surprised me." She argued unnecessarily.

"You ever drift in one of those vans before?"

Brisk let out a curt and disbelieving laugh. "If I even tried that, the whole system would shut down. I can't even change lanes without it screaming at me, drifting?" Brisk raised an eyebrow. Her inflection was accidental, her real question directed at the look on the mans face.

She didn't have to wait. He let off a tiny little smirk. "Ever wanted to?"

Brisk felt that little spark of challenge he was letting off and matched it with her own blinking stare and sarcasm to boot. "Are you offering." She batted her eyelashes to seal the deal.

"Damn right I'm offering." He bounced his fist twice on the window sill. "Any excuse, I say. But-" He waved his hand, "Let's just- goodness. I'm-" A head shake, "Okay, I'm sorry. Let me level with you. You're not bothered by- like, any of this?"

She knew what he was really asking, of course. She'd asked herself the same question while staring at his hand.

"Yes." Was her simple answer.

He blinked.

"Uh, I mean no." Brisk clarified, "I'm not bothered. I... We... Clicked." She tapped her hooves together as she said it.

They had, tentatively, at least. Brisk was here, so was he. They were both doing this thing together, and that would have to be enough for the screaming in Brisk's head, for now.

"Yes." Emanuel copied.

They shared a laugh. A door opened on the building, and a redshirted woman on rollerblades carted her way out of the building with a tray towards their car. An idea struck Brisk, something of which had crossed her mind while she was thinking about how much Emanuel gestured with his hands.

Touch-barriers. Human's had them, in fact, from her cultural training, it was made very clear that you do not touch a person without at least warning them first. Permission was a standard in most places, and it was very easy to get in trouble or make someone angry by not asking first. Ponies were touchier than humans were, not Brisk specifically, but she understood the lesson and had taken it to heart.

She hadn't touched Emanuel yet, and she had an idea to see if that was okay while skipping over the embarrassment of trying to word 'am I allowed to touch you' despite the fact that, had she considered it, the question was a perfectly reasonable and adult thing to ask.

Instead, she stood up in her seat, and said, "Watch this." Then climbed onto Emanuel's lap.

Seconds after the act, she felt her brain remind her: 'excuse me, what the buck did you ju-' before she promptly shoved that back into the dark, as she was thoroughly committed by that point, and stuck her head out of the window.

"Hello!" She yelled with a massive smile.

The woman looked up from the receipt, made eye contact with the pastel alien unicorn in a car, promptly screamed and did what humans do when prompted by Some Unknown Weird And Or Dangerous Thing That Surprised Me. Brisk caught the food and the drinks in her aura and dragged her head and the food back inside the car while trying not to chuckle. Not that she was deeply amused, but Emanuel certainly was. It was already hard enough balancing on just his thighs, but with him carefully holding back laughter, she nearly fell over as she backed into the passenger seat again.

"Brisk." He said between holding his laughter back, trying to sound displeased. "That was mean."

Brisk felt the big 'ol smile on her face and went with the flow. "But it was hilarious."

He snorted, "It was exactly what I did. You gonna ask her out too?"

She pretended to ponder, tapping a hoof to her chin as she set the food down is Emanuel's lap. The place she had been previously... He didn't seem to mind. "Hmmm." She went, struggling to think of what to do next, until a little tidbit slammed into her mind, "Oh wait! We forgot to pay!" She looked back out the windshield, but the woman was long gone.

"Nope." Emanuel bounced his fist on the door again, "There's a card slot right on the menu, I paid while you were thinkin'"

The window began to roll itself up, and Emanuel checked his mirrors again. Now that it had been permeating the car, Brisk could smell the oil and the cheese. Mozzi sticks must mean mozzarella. As his hand reached for the shift, Brisk noticed how he'd never turned the engine off. The car had spent that time rumbling away right in front of them as they did what they did. He pulled out of the parking spot and hefted up the drinks one at a time into the cupholders, then put his seatbelt on.

Brisk remained silent, going back to her spot on the armrest as he turned out of the lot and onto the five line road that ran through the town. Until he handed her a cup full of what she had suspected were fried sticks of mozzarella. She took it in her magic, and Emanuel did that thing again where he wiggled his hand in response to touching her aura. She took a whiff to gauge the heat, and finding that it was cool enough to nom, she obliged her grumbly tummy.

Some level of nirvana was achieved there. Her brain could register the amount of 'probably unhealthy' but her taste buds just didn't care. How they got mozzarella sticks to be juicy was something she couldn't fundamentally grasp, but she made the associated noise of delight that came with eating something especially tasty. Human junk food is the best. Some ponies were weirded out or disgusted by the standard human dietary options. Brisk was not one of those ponies.

"Glad you like it." He said, hiding his mirth at her enjoyment.

Brisk waved a hoof. "Hush for a moment." And she ate another one. Crunchy and juicy, the perfect mozzarella stick experience. Emanuel continued to chuckle, and then he pulled into the onramp for the interstate. Between the third stick, Brisk asked, "Where are we going?" Which sounded more like, "wrrrwe guin?"

"You said you wanted drifting, didn't you?" He smiled, turning the smirk her way. It dropped in an instant, looking at her current sitting position. "Actually, can you fit that seatbelt over yourself?"

Brisk chose an answer via putting it on. Sitting upright like the seatbelt required was revealing, not to mention uncomfortable. Emanuel had been really good about that though, so it didn't feel strange. She just put her weight back and steadied her heart for the fact that he was pulling up on fifty miles per hour and had just said drift. As if the two were connected.

He went faster. Going into the lane as it merged in with the highway, he pushed the radio button again. Like before, a guitar started playing, something with a stronger reverberation. Brisk repositioned herself as he tiny car vibrated with energy. She glanced over at the speedometer, which read seventy and climbing. The engine only got louder as Emanuel called out, "And lucky for us! Clear road!" He leaned forwards over the steering wheel.

Emanuel knew this feeling.

That feeling of forwards.

More than just the car cresting on eighty miles per hour. More than the tune that was about to start blasting, one he knew by heart. It was more than the rumble in the engine, the tightness in his hands. All of that was exhilarating, but it was nothing to putting on a performance.

Brisk was still here. She looked a little spooked by the speed they were getting up to, but that smile and the way her ears were swiveling around were a telltale sign of that thrilling excitement he was feeling too. The sign said seventy, but that just isn't fast enough for me.

Emanuel raised his voice over the musical intro to the song as the car bordered on one hundred. "Hey RUNNER!?"

The car came up near a curve as the music paused in preparation for the intro, and he slammed down all of his stress and emotion into his voice as he whispered, "Run, Faster." As the song really started, and Emanuel let his voice loose in the chords he knew by heart, he switched gears and turned the car too hard into the turn, carefully starting a one hundred mile an hour drift down the interstate.

He saw Brisk press herself backwards into the seat as the wheel's 'directions' became more of 'suggestions', the g-forces pressed against them shortly as the curve evened out, and so did the car. It jerked once as the wheels caught and the car straightened out. The speedometer read one zero nine. Brisk made some kind of noise, and Emanuel pressed his foot down onto the accelerator harder.

Then he rolled the windows down. Raising his voice higher for the vocals of the song as they shot down the interstate.

"WOOO!" Brisk screamed over the radio and the wind in her face. Her horn was lit, desperately holding onto her beanie.

Another curve came up, and Emanuel focused on a tighter line, shifting gears later into the curve. The drift cut in harder, the g-force immediately pulling Brisk into the door as the nose of the car went 'right angle' with the curve of the road. The front wheel kissed the edge of the far left lane, and Emanuel let the drift cancel itself out, swinging the wheel just a little bit as it tried to drift in the other direction from the momentum of the wheels catching, still singing all the while.

The lights of the city in the distance, Emanuel came up with a short idea, as their fun would be ruined the moment they found any traffic. With the wind in his face, and a song in his lungs, there really was only one way to push it. "Hey Brisk!"

Brisk turned to face him, smiling wide, loving every minute of the wind in her mane.

Emanuel's voice caught for a moment, as his brain reminded him that he was looking at a pony. There was a silent grapple for reasonability. She was not human. Obviously. But she also wasn't an animal. He settled on being attracted to the way her... mane blew around in the wind, the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. Yeah. That's okay. She can think, that's what matters. Course, the mental influences from the society he was born into disagreed, but that didn't matter either.

"What?!" She shouted back.

"Wanna see something really crazy?!"

She made a face, something bordering on disbelief. Emanuel took note of how her ears moved. "Crazier than that?!"

Emanuel nodded as the song reached a lull, the guitar chonking away in an echo as the chorus was whispered.

Brisk took a look out the window, at how fast everything was going past, looked back to him, and nodded rapidly.

Emanuel matched her massive smile and switched the car into low gear. They rolled down a hill, and he slowed down as he tried to catch an opening in the highway through the dark. He found it eventually, slowing down enough that he could actually hear the song over the wind. Still objectively fast, just not speeding anymore.

As the song picked up again, Emanuel pumped the breaks and switched gears. "Hold on!"

Through a series of practiced moves, Emanuel set he car into a sliding spin curving inwards towards the outside. Brisk screamed a rollercoaster scream as the car spun once, and Emanuel wrenched himself forwards and slammed into the gas and spun the wheel and switched the gear as the car pulled sideways in front of the highway juncture. The already slowing car caught the new momentum as the spin turned into a drift with the car now facing the opposite direction, there was a kick that wrenched everything in the car into the air as the back wheels skid into the grass around the gravel of the juncture, and the car spun through the guardrails and onto the other side of the highway.

Emanuel slammed the gas and the gear as the drift straightened out. "WOOO!" He shouted, slamming his hands onto the steering wheel. There was nothing like racing. Every maneuver felt like it's own world. There was nothing outside of it but reality; the endorphins and joy he got from executing that maneuver like he had before brought him up higher than any drug ever could have.

Brisk had enjoyed it too, her scream having turned into a laugh like his. The exhilaration and the wind and the music drifting and wedging themselves into the moment they were sharing as two wackjobs who totally almost died. Emanuel caught his breath as both of their laughter petered out. Unwrenching his hands from the wheel and de-tensifying his body. He put the car in the far right lane and went back up to a reasonable highway speed while waiting for an exit.

"So what did you think?" He called over while rolling up the windows.

Brisk looked like she'd just robbed a candy store. "Where did you learn how to drive like that!?"

"Racing gang?" He asked back, "Didn't I tell you that?"

"No?" Was her excited answer, not that she cared.

Emanuel had remembered thinking about his old home. He didn't remember telling her about his old family though. He may have just made an oopsie. "Woops." He shrugged. No use doing anything other than carrying on. "Well, I grew up around a racing gang. Remember those 'guys' I mentioned?"

Another gamble. Brisk was good about it though, he had to believe that. This whole thing hinged on it, after all.

Brisk's ears pivoted, and she tapped her hoof a few times. "Oooooooooooh!" She stretched it out like it was some massive epiphany. "That's why 'you may know more about cars than me' sounded like such a massive compliment!" She said with an adorable smile.

"It was," He started, "but keep in mind, I just know how to drive 'em. I'm not- I couldn't pull an engine, or anything fancy." Which was unfortunately the truth. Emanuel knew what most of the components looked like, and where not to put his hands when the engine was running, but that was about it.

"You're being modest." Brisk batted her eyelashes again, and Emanuel fought down another flush. Wondering when his subconscious had gotten so nervous around mares. "That was... I think, by definition. Fancy."

"Thanks." Emanuel turned off the highway up an unmarked hill. Tracking what looked like a sideroad to one of those emergency truck-stop pits. The thing ended hilariously quickly, and he slowed the car to a stop at the top of the hill.

Far enough away from the express way to be quiet. Far enough for them to be alone.

He wondered how she'd take that. He knew how he would have. He couldn't tell if that's what he wanted her to think.

To put it simply. He had stopped thinking when he got out of that booth. This was all haphazard 'yes anding' to his own actions. So he parked the car and undid the sunroof. The motors whirring back to life after being disturbed from their slumber to open up the top of the car to the sky. Of which was currently cloud free.

He offered Brisk a smoothie. Which she took in her aura with a silent smile while brushing back her mane away from her face with a hoof. Apparently she did get the romantic vibes, if her expression was anything to go by. He staggered verbally. Wondering what he should say in this circumstance.

Emanuel liked to think of himself as prepared. A thinker. All those imaginary circumstances conjured up in his head from parts of the past as he criticized what he should have done and what he would do in the future tended to lead to more realistic moments that he could pretend he had prepared for. Though, for this, he could be honest. How the hell was I supposed to be prepared for a date with an alien horse going so well that I don't want it to end.

She didn't bother with the smoothie. Choosing to meet his eyes for the moment. Eventually her lips parted, filling the quickly chilling air with her voice. Whether it was the voice or the air that sent a tingle up his spin, he was slightly unsure. "We both... not sure what to say?"

"Yeah." He settled on honesty. No need to twist the truth for someone who knew already.

Moments weren't lost as they passed through. He went for part two. "Want to just enjoy the silence for a little while?"

She broke eye contact first, taking the bashful approach to switching her gaze to the sky. She stared by chuckling, "I think I need a little quiet after almost becoming a road smear." and her voice turned softer as she stared upwards.

Emanuel eventually broke his own gaze from the mare in the seat next to him and stared at the sky as well.