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A soft, feminine voice called out and Nekharat turned to face Persephone in the flesh, her bay coat flecked with white shining in the dappled Forest sunlight. The red mare dipped her nose in respect and acknowledgment, glad that it appeared there would be a clear exchange of dialogue between the two of them. Trust it seemed, was more implicit in the connections between women than any other dynamic—at least in the case of a visitor upon foreign lands. Nekharat had been that visitor in many places, and Persephone’s casual yet sincere manner with respect to her arrival was somewhat unexpected, especially given what she knew she’d been through in the fairly recent past.

“Thank you Persephone, it is good to meet you,” she began. “I am Nekharat, of the Peak. I came today at Wasp’s suggestion that we should get to know each other.”

The chestnut Akhal-Teke does not mince words, finding no reason for games in this circumstance. She needed the leader of the Forest to feel at ease by her presence so that they might develop something of a working relationship. If change was truly what she wanted, she hoped that Persephone might be willing to offer her wisdom.

“I am not ignorant to what you have been through,” she continued. “And my hope is that we might work together now, in a time of less turmoil, to keep such violence from escalating as it has in the past.”

She paused a moment, thinking of Rougaru, and how her righting of the injustices that occurred in Paradise might have set another chain of events into motion. If the Atlantis tyrant’s eye, which had evidently already been upon Luthien according to Rille, wandered to the Forest once again, Persephone deserved to be warned and of course, the Peak's support and protection in this matter.

NEKHARAT