She laughs. Tarian, who could normally be seen wearing a stern expression, wears a bemused one instead. He considers the dun monarch with a speculative gaze but he adds nothing more. There is nothing more for the gray pegasus to add. He's never been to the North; he has only heard that there are remnants of a once-proud kingdom lost somewhere between the stone cliffs and mighty pine trees. There are even whispers of a Dragon King there and Tarian knows better than to deal with the fire-breathers.
(Cazador had left a permanent scar on his golden grandsire. It's kept the silver stallion wary of them. And good riddance, he thinks. He's kept his distance from the scaled ones and so he wears no scars as Valerio had.)
The day is hot but the water lapping past his fetlocks is cool. It had been sweet and despite the sweltering heat that grows, his thirst has been quenched and his throat clears. It no longer feels as if Loess' sand is coating it. It allows his voice to be steady when he answers he answers the inquiring Lepis. "I am," he states. Tarian considers something a moment - as if something is weighing on his mind - and as he collects his dripping wings to his sides, he decides to reply: "I was raised up a soldier." He explains (and its mostly the truth; after his first birthday, it had been important for them all to learn how to defend themselves. What had happened in Windskeep could have happened to Paraiso.)
"I spent my first years in training under my father, a knight." He isn't sure if Beqanna has such things anymore. Orders had been hard to find and the one he joined in Liridon had only brought him disappointment. "And the years since then have been traveling the lands Beyond."
Tarian could be more eloquent. He could flare his court manners as easily as he could flare out his proud wings. As he considers the Queen before him, he doubts she would find much use for them (and the forthright manner with which she speaks makes him admire her for it. Tarian has learned to have little patience or use for courtiers. Lepis is as direct as the sunlight that has started to beat down on their backs. He offers a brief but equally direct synopsis of what he might offer the Kingdom to the South (after already elaborating that there was nothing for him in the North). He had also heard that the kingdom to the West was a land of leisure and the only thing waiting for him there would be pasture and growing soft. To the East? There were Devils supposedly lurking (and while it does intrigue him, Tarian would rather not dwell among them).
He cuts straight to the point (more like the sword than his name-sake, the Shield) but in the calming waters around them, Tarian even manages a joke. "Is there use here for an ex-Knight with no manners?"
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.