Chéri laughed. No it wasn’t. Most people found them beautiful and there was no discussing that. The idea that culture could influence something like taste, preferences or ideals was hard to grasp for someone who had never read in their life, didn’t know what philosophy worked and had a very trial-and-error approach to everything.

Chéri shrugged. Insults were no news and Darius was not cruel towards them. But it made them more weary of saying anything more when it came to ballet, as they had little patience and giving the man the time to think about it and to reach his own conclusion was more than Chéri was willing to do.

“Born to be bless mortals with beauty, born for joy…” they were repeating sentences they head heard from other people. Nothing of that applied to how it felt to be them. It hardly ever did. Chéri was entirely disconnected emotionally from how men felt about their apparence, but that had been such a key factor in their survival that they basked in it and looked like nothing else mattered. Whenenver they were getting close to seduction, they managed to lose themselves in the fantasy as well.

Darius back away and almost fell. Chéri bent their head to the side and stayed in position for a moment. The man was so scared they didn’t get closer for the moment, sure to scare him again, even more. “I was explaining something to you,” they said, matter of factly and blinked a few times “Did I scare you?” they said, their eyes getting big, sweet and apologetic, as they shrunk, pretending to be sorry to have scared him. Chéri looked away, getting a little red on purpose, as if they had betrayed a liking they didn’t realise they had for Darius “I…” they didn’t know how to finish the sentence. They were just trying to pretend to be confuse and need some type of reassurance. The lost little duckling act scored well with some people and they figured, perhaps, Darius would have enjoyed comforting them. They bowed their head, in a self conscious display “Oh, maybe I should go…” they weren’t going anywhere.