The funny kitten with the funny sounds is quick to cease making them in the presence off his own stuttered voice. The tiny girl wiping her fists across her cheeks to dry them before peering up towards him. Tobias equally content to peer back and meet the violet of her gaze with that stark, near black off his own. He was ever-curious off such an anomaly within his territory. Kittens were rare in this part of town and they were surely never alone. No. Kittens must have an adult. Yes. This he knows because Nadya has told him- but this one is alone. Like he had been when he was small. Though how much of such a time he truly remembers, or at least, pretends he does not remember remains to be seen all at once. His own head tilted once more, that wild dark hair so desperately in need of cutting content to tangle with his eyes lashes and fall in his eyes with that very gesture. No one within the depths of the Ark willing to attempt that haircut after he had shown such a strong aversion to scissors. That was another sound he did not like. The sound of snipping. Especially so close to his ears. Several bitten staff members enough to scare off the rest from ever attempting such a feat again. The lanky deviants hair grown wilder and wilder. Though perhaps it suited him and his own decidedly wild nature.

The sound of the kittens voice readily sees those gold and black spotted ears atop his head prick forward again, his features frowning slightly at that insistence she was sad because she was lost and alone. His mind taking several seconds to process those very words and search for them amongst that collection of phrases he readily understood. Sad was a word he knew even if he did not always understand it. Lost was another word his mind readily seemed to seize and one he understood in turn. Alone the final of those words he seemed to register somewhere within the confines of his fractured mind. The kittens sentence is short, simple, direct and using only those most basic of words to describe how and why. Tobias' own mind readily finding appeal in such a sentence as that. Even if he was sure the kitten was wrong. The young man considering those words for several moments longer as his feet swung almost boyishly from the roof he rested on.

"You are not.....lost now because....I have found you. Not alone...now because.....I am here. I was....alone when I was.....a kitten but.....now I am not."

Whether or not the lanky Leopard was so attempting to comfort the girl or offer her some reassurance that she was hardly alone any longer and surely would not be forever remained to be seen. Tobias rarely showing any ability to consider the past or the future, the boy very much inclined to live in the present and the now- stating what was surely obvious. That she was not lost if she had been found and she was not alone if he was here and as such there was no reason for her to cry any longer and if she did not cry, she was not sad. His manner of thinking decidedly direct and yet, like the child before him he was prone to that simple, blunt honesty in almost all he did. The young girl takes a few steps closer towards him, Tobias hardly concerned with her proximity. After all, a child was not a threat, not to him, no. We must be gentle with kittens. He knows this....mostly. Her very insistence that he looked more fun than paper seemed to prompt that lopsided grin to his features, such a look hardly appearing...normal upon his face all the same. Tobias so often failed to allow that smile to linger for the appropriate amount of time before his features abruptly dropped into that emotionless facade once more so making that two-second grin appear all the more unusual as it flickered and faded all at once. Those social clues evidently lost upon him for the most part. The boy decidedly pleased with her sentence and as such he had attempted to show it....sort of. People smiled when they were pleased. This he knows. That very gesture one he had learned to mimic during his youngest days even if he failed to do it quite so exactly.

"Tetra and....Birdie always......love paper the most...some days. 'Tobias! Will you go outside!' This is....what Tetra....said. I will......murder the paper."

His head nodded readily, those dark eyes narrowing ever so slightly, his very personality seeming to shift if even for a moment at that assurance he intended to murder that paper. Those very words that came before that declaration a mimic of Tetradore's own voice so sending him away earlier that day. Tobias a decidedly good mimic, that copied sentence lacking any of the stutter off his own words. That very irritation seeming to leave him as quickly as it had formed. His features once more decidedly neutral as the tip off his tail flicked about, his gaze resting again on the girl below him to declare she was a kitten. The child insisting she was a kid and he was a cat. Tobias' own head tilted once more. He liked her small, easy sentences. He liked her simple, direct words. Perhaps he liked kittens. Yet she was not a kid, of that he was sure. Maeve, she was Maeve.

"I do not know....this word.....kid. I am not.....a cat.....I am Tobi."

That he had, somehow, confused species and names was evidently clear. The young man further considering those very things, his features frowning all over again with the sheer effort of such a consideration. That mention off his tail drew his gaze toward that decidedly long, fluffy appendage that rested beside him. That crooked, misplaced grin finding his lips again as he eyed it. The kitten (because she WAS a kitten regardless off her argument otherwise) declaring she herself failed to have one. That funny, hissing, snickering sound falling from the young man's lips then.

"You do not have....a tail because......you are a Fae.....like the King...but you....have eyes....like the Horse. I am.....leopard. Fae are.....very hard....to find. They would....like you if they.....found you."

Just what this sentence might mean remained to be seen entirely. Tobias effortlessly identifying her species and yet he knew the scent of Fae. He knew when Birdie came home to him smelling of Fae. The kitten holding that same scent. Though just what horse he spoke off and the very 'they' he continued to mention seemingly offered no further words as Maeve held her hand out towards his tail with that request to touch it. Tobias' own form shifted atop that roof. The Leopard suddenly vaulting down from it to land neatly on his bare feet beside her. At well over six foot tall he so readily towered above her tiny frame and yet he hardly seemed to notice as his tail flicked forward to hold itself towards her to touch. That gold and spotted appendage nearly as long as his own human body, affording Maeve plenty off it to examine.

"It is my....favorite part because....it is the best. You can....touch, yes."

His head nodded once more as if this statement was the truest thing he knew- and perhaps it was. No one had a tail so nice as he. He was sure. He'd checked. His attention had readily deviated once more to the noise the girl had been making. Maeve insisting she was crying because she was scared, her tiny frame pressing closer towards him at his mention of 'they'. The boy rarely given to explain his words in any sense. Tobias so evidently believing every being in the world was like Tetradore and inclined to understand just what he meant. Tetra always had. Ever since they were kittens together. That very question on who 'they' were seemed to prompt that near quizzical look from the feline, his mind struggling to understand what she did not understand about that sentence. His head nodded once more. Tobias nothing if not direct.

"Yes....they will make....you dead. I will not....hurt....you....no."

Reassuring children was, perhaps, not his best ability. Tobias failing to recognise how very fearful those words might make his new companion. The lanky Leopard so often seeming to lack fear entirely, his eyes merely watching the girl press closer and closer though whether or not he understood why could hardly be said.

"Do you want to....see them? I can.....show to....Maeve. They will not see us....though. Tobi is much.....to clever."

madness, as you know, is like gravity: all it takes is a little push