Kick the Dust up

Mouth parting and just sort of sitting open in a manner that Maple figured made her look like a weird guppy, she just sort of looked at the much taller male with a frozen, uncertain expression. Wait, no, say something, Maple!

"Oh, uhm, yeah. They're pretty cool. And really big." Was that lame? It felt lame and weird. Pale ears fell to the sides as the young woman tried desperately to stop feeling all weird and nervous and do something normal and not weird. What should she say? Oh, gosh, talking wasn't supposed to be stressful.

'You can do this Maple, stop panicking!' she thought in an attempt to calm herself. A few deep breaths helped significantly and she let a calmer, warmer smile play at her dark lips as she asked, "What about you? Doing anything interesting on a nice day like this?" Hey, that was pretty good! Getting a little braver, she would casually add, "My name's Maple, by the way. What's yours?"