His voice comes to her as a relief, a familiar tongue in a foreign land. It is a life-preserver in a rocky sea. Able to speak, to hear, to breathe as if home again - she is called instinctively to befriend him, even if one cannot trust a thing merely for a shared heritage. Many a king had fallen to the thought that blood and family was greater than power. Her ears are the first things that he would see change, her head lifting only slightly from its cautious position.

There is humor in him, she sees clearly just then, for her commentary regarding his name. It had originally only been to keep her from feeling lonely, talking to a foreign speaker at all, but now she regrets having not been more formal. She doe not voice her agreement, only nodding at first with a pause after for what might have been contemplation. "It is, perhaps, better to name a thing by its spirit rather than it’s appearance… you are not as fearsome as your name..." It is a clear tease, the way her tail wags in tandem with the words almost evoking a note of sing song to them. "Though I do not fare any better," she says with an acknowledging tilted dip and rise of her head after he asked her his next few questions, "My people named me Koi after the fish who inhabit our sacred lakes and the colors splashed across them by divine brushes."

It is more than is common for her to speak to say this much, but she finds herself freed from her usual inhibitions with this wilder place full of newness and shameless speech. "My home is as far as the horizon and twelve times more before you reach the mountains, then another two days to the shore. The island that is across the strait, then, is where I come from. It has many names that I have encountered and many people call my people many other things." More talking than she is used to once again, but she shows her temerity at such bold talking in how her tail dips to rest over her left hock and her ears go out to the sides in a wolf’s blush.

"And this place? What is it called? Why do so many live with no House or Lord to pay homage to? Has there been a war?" This time her voice is softer, as if made nervous by more than simply voicing her thoughts.