As much as the young filly regarded him, the pale stallion took her in with equal curiosity. She was frank and calm in her perusal of the stranger, furthering the stallion’s amusement in her quickly forming character. Her smile was a trademark of youth – ignorant but innocent, or perhaps that was innocently ignorant. Well past his own youth, the stallion still remembered his own frank curiosities with candid clarity and no small mark of fondness.

However, her reply to the stallion left a sour taste in his mouth and paused his amusement in their early morning conversation – though that was more to do with his skeletons than any fault of the filly’s. His gaze followed the fleeting bird with the filly, tilting his ears toward her as she spoke again, pulling a dry smile onto his speckled muzzle.

“I’m afraid, my dear, that it is where we feel safest that we are most in the way of harm. If I may, I would warn that you take utmost caution wherever you go, no matter the company.” His smiling lips did not change or peel backward to reveal fangs, but the glitter of his maroon eyes became increasingly dark as he spoke. “I am here because the air is fresh and the water clean – I think that is as good a reason as any to be in a place, regardless of how big and terrible others may be... Your prime minister, is she as just and kind as she is large?