Sonorae does not recognize Monster by name, nor even truly by sight. In those few blissful first days spent hogging Rougaru's attention, she had spared only a passing glance for the other residents of her jungle home, and regret for her oversight swelled in her chest. Still, she is familiar enough, and more importantly safe enough that something in Rae relaxes and a smile trembles across her lips.
Ashamed of what had happened, she retreats into herself, shrinking away from the mare's attention and dropping her gaze to the sand at her hooves as though it might provide some sort of answer for her agony. She could not have put a name to the fear that consumes her in the presence of this mare, who despite her smaller size, carried far more of a presence than Rae could ever dream of commanding. When the painted mare offers her muzzle (a fact Rae only notices for the shadow it casts on the ground) she shyly returns the gesture, allowing a tentative puff of air to escape her nostrils.
She withdrew as Monster did, allowing her brown gaze to flick up momentarily. To her surprise, there is understanding there, alongside anger that Rae does not yet understand. Her slender ears flick uneasily, but she does not voice her concern. After all, what could she say? She did not yet understand why the painted stallion behaved as he did, or why guilt swilled uncomfortably in her stomach.
"Hello," she says quietly, uncomfortably aware that she does not yet have a name for herself. It had never seemed important after Rougaru had brought her here, and if she was honest, it hadn't really crossed her mind much. Her tail flicks awkwardly in the silence that drops, and she grimaces slightly, not really sure of what words would help to fill the silence. Admitting that she didn't even know her own name felt like an admission of greater magnitude than she could handle in the face of the pinto mare's displeasure.
At Monster's question, Rae's brown quirks in contemplation and a beat of silence stretches between them. Eventually, the words rise on their own to fill the silence, even though they hurt her to say. "Is… there a way to undo something a stallion has done?"
The words are slow to spill and hesitant. They feel like an admission of something she doesn't fully understand. Her hide twitches in unconscious remembrance of Tyr's touch. Everything that he had done had felt so selfish and impersonal that she wasn't even sure that she could quantify what had happened. It might as well have been anyone instead of herself, and yet she was the one that had to bear this burden. She simply didn't understand.
"I--" She tries again but the words fail her. "He --" She stalls, her gaze darting desperately from the pinto mare. Silence stretches again and she shakes her head as if to signify that she had no more words to offer. Only then does she return her eyes to Monster's face, hope flickering to life in the warm amber of her gaze.
