Rhadra has barely enough time to drift into a light doze before movement flickers in the corner of her eye. She blinks her vision clear to observe a pale mare making her way closer to the vegetation creekside, evidently on the hunt for some evening graze, and watches her with some interest. On her pale body are paler spots, big swaths of lighter pigment almost like the piebalds she’s lived with except instead of white on black, this mare is white on stronger white. It’s a subtle effect, one that Rhadra appreciates quietly as she waits for the other mare to come within earshot.
It does not take the spotted mare long: she trots the rest of the way and then pulls up short and takes a look around. Rhadra has a ready smile as she opens her mouth to hail the other, but the stricken gaze suddenly pointed at her freezes Rhadra’s own expression into that of equal shock. She is startled by the sudden shouting, the accusation flung at her, and it takes a good deal of self-control to hold her hooves to the ground as her ears tip back, squinting like she’s nose-deep in a strong wind.
“Whooo,” she exhales slowly as she works the tension out of her body with a couple more slow, deliberate breaths and flips her ears forward. She gives the other mare a thorough once-over and weighs her next words carefully. “If winter were here I’d have a much harder time,” she says with a genuine, if shaky, smile. “But why shouldn’t I see you?”
Rhadra is uncomfortably aware that she is a stranger to this Someplace, and while it might look quite a bit like home there’s no certainty that the inhabitants will behave in a way she finds familiar. This pale, startled mare is a prime example: if everyone here is like her then Rhadra will have to learn the rules of this land quickly, for she intends to stay.
|