As the whinny reached her ears, and the spotted mare turned to catch the approach of the burnt one, the tension eased from her body. This was a predictable thing, a controllable one. One not wrought with open-ended variables, as was the case with other situations. “Scorch,” she answered pleasantly, dipping her head in greeting.
She suppressed a chuckle as the term choice came into play. Certainly, given that she was here, it might be assumed there was some level of possibility in which she might stand instead in the territory of some stallion. Little did they know that it was a possibility that was stillborn at best, stagnated and suffocated of its own volition. Traton would never serve under the court of a stallion, not so long as a world existed where mares determined their own paths in the world. As such, of that matter, the only choice that had existed in the first place was the one in which she decided whether or not to leave her idle wandering behind- and to that end, she found as she’d come to this place that she missed the stability of established hierarchy. “As am I,” she stated, returning her own smile. There was a hint of something else there in that crooked smile- mischief, perhaps?- that drew the spotted mare in. She sensed, as she had before, that this mare knew a great deal of the world, yet remained untouched by much of it. It wasn’t a tale wholly unlike a great stone that weathered over the years, but fundamentally remained the same. After all, one wouldn’t gain such extensive scars without a story to tell, and the spotted girl yearned to listen. She was, in the sense of storytelling, still a child in some ways, symptomatic of a girl who’d grown up much too soon. And whatever the reason, she was forever hungry for tales of hardship overcome.
Scorch’s voice shook her from her musings, and she found herself again enraptured by those curious eyes. There was something distinctly un-equine about them, though she couldn’t quite place it. Her eyes traced them curiously as she spoke. “Thank you. I’d be happy to serve Nerine, as you see fit.” It isn’t without a sense of irony that the words pass from her lips. It was less than a season before, after all, that she’d stood at the meadow’s edge, convinced that she’d never have to see another equine. It was awfully… domestic of her, offering herself to the whims of a kingdom. Yet, it had become abundantly clear that this place was far different than whence she came- and Traton would be terribly remiss to let it go.