11-07-2019, 11:11 PM
Over the sound of Noma crashing around in the undergrowth and fallen needles surrounding them, the voice is still clear. It's a welcome voice, a familiar one, and Noah turns her face away from her daughter briefly to follow the sound of the call to it's origin, waiting for Lepis to emerge from the gloom beneath the trees. She doesn't bother to call back, because the other mare emerges only heatbeats later, her green eyes meeting Lepis' gray-blue over the top of the chattering filly, who is attempting to tell her mother all about whatever she just found under that tree, over there.
"Hi," she offers lamely, but is saved from any more words for a moment. She is glad of her daughter's quick movements right now, because the filly has moved on to another tree inspection already, leaving a space which Lepis fills before Noah has time to contemplate anything else. Instinctively, she wraps her own neck around her friend's in a tight embrace, inhaling the familiar scents mixed with the new ones unique to the Taiga. It's a good thing that they are of a close size, she muses, because if Lepis had outweighed her like so many others did, the force at which they came together might have been quite unfortunate. Instead, she can brace for the touch and support the press of the lighter colored mare's body, for the time until Lepis pulls back so that they can converse. "Always too long," she answers the query with a look in her eyes that agrees; it has been too long. Not for the first time, she wonders if it's worth it; as much as she loves the Pampas, she considers again giving it up, to go live somewhere one of her friends-like-family resided, instead of her almost solitary little herd.
She, too, remembers the awful days that proceeded and followed their last meeting. It darkens her own gaze, because even though she had not lost like Lepis and Bane had that day, the senseless violence between two she had considered friends had hurt Noah deeply as well, causing her to withdraw quite quickly back to her Pampas. She had stayed to help them bid farewell to their (at the time) youngest child, but then even Lepis and Bane's need could not prevent her from going home to lick her own wounds, and wonder why of all of those who could have clashed, it had to be Castile and Leliana. But something else is shadowing Lepis' golden face now, something clearly more recent, and her voice shakes on her next words. Noah steps closer again to the other mare, even as she keeps a careful ear and eye trained on the filly engrossed in tasting different moss off of each forest rock.
"I miss you always when we are apart," she whispers, "But what is wrong? Tell me what's happened." Reaching out to brush her muzzle against Lepis' shoulder, Noah feels dread coiling in the pit of her own stomach ahead of whatever Lepis has to say. What has rattled her stalwart friend so thoroughly?
"Hi," she offers lamely, but is saved from any more words for a moment. She is glad of her daughter's quick movements right now, because the filly has moved on to another tree inspection already, leaving a space which Lepis fills before Noah has time to contemplate anything else. Instinctively, she wraps her own neck around her friend's in a tight embrace, inhaling the familiar scents mixed with the new ones unique to the Taiga. It's a good thing that they are of a close size, she muses, because if Lepis had outweighed her like so many others did, the force at which they came together might have been quite unfortunate. Instead, she can brace for the touch and support the press of the lighter colored mare's body, for the time until Lepis pulls back so that they can converse. "Always too long," she answers the query with a look in her eyes that agrees; it has been too long. Not for the first time, she wonders if it's worth it; as much as she loves the Pampas, she considers again giving it up, to go live somewhere one of her friends-like-family resided, instead of her almost solitary little herd.
She, too, remembers the awful days that proceeded and followed their last meeting. It darkens her own gaze, because even though she had not lost like Lepis and Bane had that day, the senseless violence between two she had considered friends had hurt Noah deeply as well, causing her to withdraw quite quickly back to her Pampas. She had stayed to help them bid farewell to their (at the time) youngest child, but then even Lepis and Bane's need could not prevent her from going home to lick her own wounds, and wonder why of all of those who could have clashed, it had to be Castile and Leliana. But something else is shadowing Lepis' golden face now, something clearly more recent, and her voice shakes on her next words. Noah steps closer again to the other mare, even as she keeps a careful ear and eye trained on the filly engrossed in tasting different moss off of each forest rock.
"I miss you always when we are apart," she whispers, "But what is wrong? Tell me what's happened." Reaching out to brush her muzzle against Lepis' shoulder, Noah feels dread coiling in the pit of her own stomach ahead of whatever Lepis has to say. What has rattled her stalwart friend so thoroughly?