The stallion had found himself growing more and more discomforted by the distance that slowly grew between himself and the herd. Always casting a cautious glance towards the group of bodies that lay ahead and peering through the trees, he constantly found pause to look behind him in search of the bay filly and her dark skinned brother. Torn between keeping close to the other mares in order to be the barrier between them and the trespassers that would eventually arrive and turning back to find the filly and keep her contained within the group, he looked back to see her dark face peeking out of the trees.

He had perhaps looked over that same bush four or five times earlier but he had seen no glimpse of the filly. It should have put him at ease to know that she had taken so well to the forest that she had the ability to all but disappear into the leaves and the branches, but Vercingetorix was more concerned with keeping all the inhabitants of the forest together in one, easy to observe location, and she was too far from the herd for him to be put at ease. Staring silently in her direction for a moment or two before casting another paranoid glance towards the herd, once again scanning the trees and flicking his ears forwards and back, he turns towards her.

Vercingetorix had noticed a while ago that the girl had been the quiet sort, one that lingered unseen at the edges of the herd. She was better at going unnoticed than he was, perhaps because she was so small, or perhaps because being silent came so naturally to her.

Approaching her, he kept a careful distance. Having never been entirely too close or even particularly friendly to the two orphans, the stallion was certain that Costello did not want him to stand in her personal space. Setting his dark eyes to her face, he sees a sort of defiance that he had never seen in a child before (all that he had ever noticed was the anger and the pain that had once plagued his own eyes and aged his face when he was young and when he took the time to see his reflection in the still waters of the cove) and despite her ungainly silence, he finds some sort of admiration in how she regards him. “Where is your brother?” It seemed strange to the stallion that the two born so close together should be separated- little does he know that the black colt sleeps in the bushes behind his sister, just out of sight. “Is he okay?”

With a soft twinge of concern in his voice, the stallion stays true to his obligation to protect the herd, knowing that if some sort of tragedy befell the colt, that he would have to assure the group that he was capable of protecting them. Turning his ears forwards, the stallion knows better than to wait for a verbalized reply, and instead hopes that the girl is smart enough to communicate without words.