Meadow

The storm- a rolling plague of dark shadows leaping and twisting over each other like fighting dogs on the horizon- was moving quickly, and the crowds Valr drifted through in the yawning stretch of the meadow shrank fewer and fewer as the groups took note of it and vacated. She, her pale eyes on the rippling waves of distant rain curtaining and revealing the far shapes of hills and mountains, continued slowly on, as if this, too, was inevitable, and to flee was pointless. Someone else seemed to agree with her, choosing instead to shift toward a nearby tree at a swift pace- though, as lightning burst overhead like overripe fruit splitting at the seams, Valr had to wonder how advisable this choice was.

She considered moving on, watching the figure (a thickly-curved dark mare with an explosion of snowy white across her tall back) jump as the thunder caught up. After all (the mare jolted as the downpour sheeted over them, as if stunned by it), what business was it of Valr's (she curled in a bit- was she crying?) what happened to strangers?

(She leaned back and raised her shadowy head to the sky- no, was she laughing..?)

Valr glanced on, along the invisible path she was following. It wound on to nothing; to nowhere; to the sea. She lifted her heavy head to examine the sky, flinching as lightning flashed in her eyes, blinking rain out of them before dropping her gaze, and finding it landing once again on the figure who seemed to be relishing the storm she had moments ago been trying to escape. ...Well, it wasn't as if she really had anywhere to be... A brief delay hardly mattered, did it? Pressing her harlequin lips together, she turned and steered toward the only other fool in the downpour until they were close enough to speak over the roar.

(She was. Laughing, that is. Not crying.)

She was lost for words at first, not quite certain what to make of her company now that it was clear she truly wasn't distraught. "...Are you quite mad?" she asked at last in a baritone cello of a voice that nearly vanished into the rumbling storm. Her pale eyes flicked to the tree they had not quite reached, and after a moment of rumination with a furrowed brow, she thudded into her path, using the great wall of her ribcage to block the worrisome thing from any further progress to it. Now that she'd involved herself, she found she couldn't quite swallow the idea of the tree coming down on her companion if the lightning took it.

Realizing rather too late that her frank greeting might not get the desired result (what was she even hoping to gain from this encounter..? she couldn't say herself), she began again, too slow and somewhat fumbling.

"-Or lost? You've no one with you? -My lady," she added stiffly, a tacked-on formality that she hoped might sand down the rough edges of her blunt, oaken voice into something palatable.