Delayed she was but a piece of the Peak none the less, she arrived at a leisurely pace to heated but soft argument, words hissed and spoken in such a varying manner. Her eyes rolled over the black mare, figuring that this must be Bozena, who the snake wished to test her own strength against in time just for the thrill of the fight, to the lass Wasp who addressed the behemoth who stood upon their soil.

And Maraigh looks to the man as he speaks after Adelhaid had spoken her piece to the figure. Her words had been measured and well-spoken, though the stallion Rade counters with a mention of children, of prisoners and not tearing apart any familial bonds.

A sly thought enters and vanishes from her mind without a trace. One ear flicks to listen to the latest woman speaking, and Maraigh’s eyes look towards her with a flash deep inside them. What if this woman’s children chose that life, wanted to something else that didn’t align with her own ways? To deny a path to them because of her own selfishness seemed petty.

Maraigh chuckled quietly.

But she does not look back to her, instead her eyes slide over to Rade. Ugly and scarred, missing all the hair atop her crest, her dark eyes lock upon him.

“You speak honeyed words, dear boy, but the women of the Peak are not those who need to show they can be trusted. Your kind, the male species, has such a tendency to use and abuse women without a care for who they are. Their side in this should not be the same back to you - at least, not in the beginning. That must be earned,” she says, as she slides forwards.

“Too many women here are kept under the hoof of domineering men who should be castrated rather than be allowed to breed. In this, your words are apt - you must the ocean, rising and falling with the tide and slowly finding the path to the shoreline beyond the rocky outcrop. In time, water and earth unite to work together, but that is not without hardships,” Maraigh speaks, cocking her head. “If you are not willing to hit walls hard and come back again, your talks of peace are futile.”

She means every word. To her, to her life, she was a woman. Looked down upon, sneered at and one who was supposed to exist for one purpose alone to far too many. If these men had their way, she’d be no more than some brood sow and nothing more.

Never mind to them that Maraigh was incapable of acting conceiving a child. This was a secret she kept to herself and spoke to no one, not ever. Her genetic fault ensures she was not able to pass along anything, none of her good nor her broken side.

And she means what she says. She doesn’t believe that women should be proving anything to these men. It is they who need to show they can be trusted. It goes both ways, but one side needs to yield first.

Maraigh would not see them do so.

Given the chance, she would go and fight this Cullen who they spoke of. If they needed someone to rage against him, she was only too willing to do so. Yet she knew it was not as simple as this, and so she would listen and see, having spoken her words. She believed what Bozena speaks is the truth of it, that only when it occurred should they intervene.

And Adelhaid, Wasp, were those whom she sided with. Her dark eyes surveyed the man Rade, who was up against a wall of women who wanted nothing more than to exist in their own right, without being viewed what many saw them as …

.. as fodder.