She wonders if perhaps she has saved herself from becoming dinner, but the thought doesn’t appear to cross her features - she is a hardy woman, and rarely shows emotion unless she wills it to be so. And as Arete invites her to lay with her in the meadow grasses, Merida’s eyes narrow slightly. She has been tricked before, and thus became a trickster herself - and she wonders silently if that is what this is that is unfolding before her in the dimming sunlight. But there is a promise of a hunt after a short rest, and the canine within her growls with anticipation - fresh meat from a carnivore such as the one that resides within Arete would be like a feast compared to the mice and rodents she has the ability to catch. Her fox even samples berries and leaves when meat is too hard to find.

With a bit of hesitation, Merida rolls the sparkling red of her ebony shoulders in a shrug, and moves towards Arete. With a huff she lowers herself into the grasses that are nearly tall enough to hide the two equines and enshroud them in a shadowy glow of dusk. 

“Arete,” she begins, resting her chin just before the folded knee of her foreleg. “Where are you from? I’ve lived in the meadows and forests of Beqanna as long as I can remember - I’ve never seen you before, I don’t think.” Does she still live in the meadows and forests now? Merida is unsure - her home used to be Loess, but her charm and wit were not welcomed beneath the flow of a kingdom, and she rarely cared for diplomatics or politics, and though she has been offered safe harbor in Sylva, she is hesitant to align herself to a country she has yet to explore completely herself. 

She wonders if Arete is the same way, or if she had her whole shifter family somewhere amongst the meadow grasses. Powerful beings, Merida guesses. Much more powerful than anything she could ever imagine. The ebony and crimson mare is drawn to power. It is why she did not question following Crevan in to Sylva, and it is why she now shares space next to a predator.