When the red stallion finally approaches Ivanna, it is long after her self-confidence has been shredded to tatters that waft sadly in the breeze. It wasn't that Ivanna thought she was the prettiest mare to begin with, or the most fun to be around, but there was something about watching stallion after stallion eye her and walk away after being abandoned in the Peak that just crushed her. Listlessly she lipped at the grass below her pale hooves, now entirely certain that it did not matter if she was in the Commons or in the Meadow or the Falls. No one wanted her.
The sound of the approaching male has he glancing up in caution, already moving to the side to allow him clear passage with ears tipped back cautiously into her mane. She hardly looked up from the grass she was nosing through, until she noticed that he had stopped moving and was settling before her.
The girl looked up uncertainly, eyeing his calm posture with suspicion, a few blades of errant grass still hanging out of her lip. At his question, she swallowed the thickness in her throat from her time of self-pity and offered a tentative smile. "Hi."
His question earns a frown but it is temporary and she brushes it away with a small shake of her head. "No. Well, not anymore."
Eager to seem nonchalant and as though she fit in, the splashed mare mimicked his posture with a tilt of her own hip, flicking the thick strands of her dark tail over her hocks. "Are you looking for someone? I've been all over the Crossing, I might know where they are."
She hesitated then, fully intending to introduce herself until a wave of self-doubt crept in. What if it was tacky to introduce yourself here? Would he think she was some sort of weirdo that didn't know how things worked? He hadn't introduced himself so she resolved to stay quiet, pressing her lips back together with a faint smile. He probably already thought she was weird.
Ivanna