Maslakhat feels a little to him like the established stallions of his old home. Cunning, for certain, and it makes him especially truthful to avoid the bay fellow being too keen to upset his proper life out in the sandy island. He informs because information may be power, but it is the one who feeds the power to the other that has the real handle on the situation. Rigel never lied, of course, but it was not something any creature of paranoid demeanor would take at face value. Maslakhat did seem to see it in his face, however, and that fact made him more discerning about the lead stallion. He was not dealing with some meathead. Haughty, perhaps, but what stallion wasn’t who could call an entire desert his own?

"There is no need for such formality here, Rigel," he is summoned up from his bow, bowing only at the jaw then with an acquired tilt his elder brother said often he had never acquired a taste for. It was just as well, since Antares was set to be King once upon a time. “You and your brothers may stay here as long as you desire, provided you keep watch of these lands as diligently as I do.” He hears the pause like a chasm of great opportunity, eyeing the lead stallion with a knowing look. "And course, freely share information on any who may seek to disrupt the sanctity of these sands."

It suited him, of course, to at least acquiesce to some of this - though he would hardly be a diplomat if he did not also barter for rights of their own in return. “Well, we would be glad to share with you the tales we glean from your sands, of course, as Shu would whisper them for the purpose of your ears if we were to hear them.” But there is a sharpness of wit in his tone that implies it will not come as cheaply as the implied allowance of their living amongst the sands alone. “After all, to make a life here, my brothers and I will need our First Wives and the lesser wives that will mind them? And wives and children are notorious for winkling out news and seeing what even our eyes and ears and noses miss.”

The implication of the second statement came with the unspoken bargain he then stood awaiting Maslakhats answer for. “Perhaps here in the Southeast along the edges of the flattened desert? To stay out of your hair, of course, and keep proper care along what seemed to us to be your eastern border?” He and his brothers had never believed that there’d be any cause to think that they might establish themselves, but Rigel was going to try. He had the hope above any of his other brothers. Antares had seen too much politicking, Atair believed all the world wished to do battle, and Aldebaran might seem hopeful excepting when one noticed it being blind fortitude against failure.

“Perhaps my eldest brother could come to you when we have settled and define whatever particulars you might require of us better, if it suited you to talk to him as the master of our party?”