Meadow

She'd startled her- that much was clear from the abrupt end of her laughter- and perhaps Valr would've felt some small pity at this if the other weren't now staring at her with a sudden silent intensity that made her shift to hide her flank from the possibility of teeth. But the wolfish dark mare didn't lunge- she snapped with words, not teeth, and though her pale eyes remained hawkishly on Valr's tensing body and her voice was glittering shards, it cautiously laid a vulnerable admission between them. (The curse was, somehow, a relief, though she couldn't quite say why.) At the question, Valr craned her harlequin nape through the rain to glance back at the horizon.

"...To say that I'm on an endless journey to nowhere would be a bitter thing to admit, so may we say instead, should anyone else ask, that I'm your company?"

Twisting back to her partner in poor decision-making, she considered her darksome figure again, pursing her patterned lips as she decided how honest to be. In the end, the other mare's earnest, if grim, response weighed her conscience heavier than her ego.

"I suppose that's just another way of being lost. I've no familiarity with this island, and thus no way to help you."

-Perhaps too honest. She worked her mouth in frustration, shifting a step closer and angling her head slightly down from its proud posture, as if trying to say with her body what her words didn't know how to voice without bungling it.

"-What I mean to say is, all I have to offer you is my time, but if you'd like it, you may have as much as you can endure. Until we find you someone more suitable."

The glistening mare's wet, winter eyes were still hard upon her in her sharp hematite face, and Valr found herself looking away with an unfamiliar discomfort, embarrassed somehow and annoyed to be embarrassed.