He isn’t sure, when her words come, if she is teasing him or not. His icy eyes narrow at her softly-murmured comment, but he does not disagree. This conflict would not be warring in his soul, if he wasn’t leading the Badlands. He never would have kept Velahrn trapped, and he never would have felt the need to fight her to reassert the reality of her situation. “And yet,” he murmurs, meeting her eyes pointedly, “We would not choose anything different.” He doesn’t know her, of course, but the echo of his own guilt in her words are enough to clue him in to the fact that this mare is no stranger to leadership.
Her teasing question has Rafe laughing, and he shrugs unrepentantly. He is trying to figure her out, but not because he doubts a woman’s incapability to be as cruel a monster as he is. Rafe is no stranger to the nature of people; he is no stranger to what it takes to get by in this world. Either you are cruel or you are a victim; there is no inbetween. The fact that this mare falls into the former category isn’t a shock. “Very little surprises me,” he dismisses, trailing an assessing gaze over the mare. “Like recognizes like, doesn’t it?” He knows what she is - a wolf in sheep's clothing, and all the more a threat for it.
Her next question make Rafe want to sigh, but instead he looks up to the sky. “By the time morning comes,” he tells her, “This doubt will be gone, and I will return home, content in my choice.” It is then that he will face the consequences, whatever they may be. Fallout among the herd perhaps, more attacks from Vela, hell, even her attempts to flee as soon as she recovers. Whatever the morning brings, he will face it as he has faced all other things in his life. Calmly, and with the utter certainty that he is right. Because if it is the path he has followed, then it cannot be wrong. No time for doubt, no time for looking back. To slow is to admit something is wrong, and down that path only lies death. Rafe looks back to the mare one final time and offers, amused, “You could join me - our kind should stick together. Who better to know the truth, than another monster?”
ooc: we can end here or with your reply & get something up elsewhere, if you’d like!