Their silence is comforting. She’s so glad to be in someone’s company and yet have no obligation to hold conversation. Earthshine has never been a great speaker. You don’t always need to talk to lead, she’d learned out. It’s something that she learned a long while ago. The mare was really quite okay with it. The roan stallion made things a little easier on her heart and on her mind. He lifted a weight, he eased a pain. Though Earthshine would never say it aloud, she was glad that he hadn’t moved on and left like the rest. He actually meant something, which was a strange thought. Very little meant much anymore.

Friendships were weird. She’d fallen in love with her best friend, and look how far that had gotten her. There wasn’t any love for Solgar, that was for sure. You don’t just go rushing into that sort of thing. Still, Earthshine considered them friends in some stretch of the word. That, and there was something else that hung in her head. Nothing that she would act on any time soon, but it was a tender curiosity that bubbled up from time to time, long enough to make itself known. It was simply there, neither good or bad. Yes, Solgar entertained her mind. It was nice, for once.

“It may have shrunk, but they have grown.” The joke isn’t necessarily in bad taste, but it’s a sarcastic humor that she rarely shows any more. Earthshine says nothing of them growing sick of the stallion. She can maybe see how they’d think so… he’s an odd man, a quiet man, a solitary beast. A mare that thrived on company and noise, the presence of a stallion wouldn’t do well here. Earthshine knows his type. She’s been around long enough to know that there’s a type of stallion for every mare. The odd, dark creature? She thrives on intelligence and a challenge to her mind. It’s what Ivan always was. Earthshine knows not of what the roan stallion is.

His question catches her off guard, admittedly. The mare lowers her head for a moment, pushing away some of the slush at her feet to find some of the grass that lies beneath. It’s not appetizing enough to appeal, and she brushes it off. Her nose is chilled, and she scrubs it against her foreleg in an attempt to regain feeling in the frozen area. Another few, long moments come and she heaves a sigh. It’s as if she’s forgotten to speak again, but not quite. This is different. This is a loss for words. “I’ll stay for as long as I can, but I need to be able to go when I need to.” Commitment is hard.