Common

The stallion before her seems non-threatening, but she has been told often enough to be wary of anyone she met in the fall or in the Commons so she eyes him with some suspicion. Ivanna, in truth, isn't entirely certain how to handle the ebb and flow of the hormones in her body, and they leave her flush with heat that refuses to leave her cheeks as he looks at her. She isn't sure she has ever felt as self-conscious as she does not, baking beneath his calm gaze.

He claims no one is looking for him, and a faint smile passes over her lips as she identifies with the feeling. Each of her friends had ultimately left her, even her best friend, Bokeh. She had thought that she could maybe seek out Verrat again, to play with him as they once had across the open land of the Falls, but he had snubbed her in the Peak. She was certain he was there, somewhere, but he had not come to her. And neither had any of the Peak mares.

She was beginning to think she was somehow repellent to company, or cursed, somehow. Only that could explain why everyone, even Liir, left her.

Ivanna's dark tail flicks across her haunches as she studies him. When he speaks again, a surprised bark of laughter slips from her lips before she can control it and she ducks her eyes to the ground in embarrassment. It was a drag. Every bit of today had sucked far more than anything else - save the first day she'd realized how lonely she was without her family. A tentative smile, more genuine slips across her lips and some of the caution she had been warned to keep slips away. How could someone that made her laugh mean her any harm?

"It certainly is." Her nose wrinkled and she cast her eyes back up to him again before speaking again through her laughter. "I've been here over a year and it's the same thing. No one ever stays here because they know it stinks."

She eyes him again before the words slip from her again and make the heat rise in her cheeks. "You look like you know things though. More'n me anyway."

The quiet between them passes and she flicks her gaze over the surrounding Commons and the inhabitants therein. What was she doing here, really? This crossing isle had become her home of sorts, even if it was nothing like her old one. No one stayed here, and she couldn't count on anyone to watch her back. She'd taken to sleeping in the day, if only because the daylight was much less worrying than the night. That was part of why she'd sought out the Peak mares, if she was honest. The idea of a group of strong females was comforting, but even they had snubbed her by not coming to her call.

She just didn't want to be alone anymore.

Aware that she'd let the silence stretch even further on she rushed to answer his question. "Ivanna. I'm Ivanna." She winced at the awkwardness of her own introduction but soldiered on. "Finding a home, I guess. A real one. It's what happens in the Commons, right?"

Her gaze flicks up to meet his again, guileless blue eyes wide. She hastens to assure him that she doesn't expect that from him, and her words come out rushed, all but tangled up together. "I mean you don't have to offer or anything like that. I didn't mean you had to give me one." A small awkward laugh briefly lifts the edges of her lips. "I just haven't really been to this part of the Crossing before. All the mares told me to stay away because it was dangerous but I couldn't bear being alone anymore."

She makes an awkward shrugging motion, wishing she could melt right into the brittle fall grass at her feet. Could she have made a worse first impression?

Ivanna