Forgiven, he says, but there lurks something deeper, something more behind those words. Sonorae does not know him even half as well as she did Rougaru, but even she can sense the something-else that hides in the recesses. Were she stood beside the other half of her heart, the man whom she had loved fearlessly and without caution for the kindness he had bestowed upon her, Rae might have teased that something-else from it's hiding place with careful words and gentle guidance. But Temblor is not Rougaru, and his secrets are not hers to coax. She imagines that they would flee from her in much the same manner as she has fled from their keeper time and again.

He invites her to share her wisdom of the jungle but she is again unsure of what to say. Where did one even begin to explain the lush home in which they lived? Did you start with the rain and how to avoid it so that your fur did not fall off in great, rotted clumps? Or did you start with the birds, and how their chatter always foretold the status of the land? How in their silence you should read threat, and in their raucous laughter, safety? But if one were to speak of safety, did you start with the serpents or the she-cat that prowled in the high treetops, her footsteps silent but her presence loud?

It has been an adjustment, he confides, and the sincerity of his admission earns a small smile. "I remember," she murmurs, her gaze flicking to him and then away. Sonorae could not remember her life before the islands, although she'd often tried to find those absent memories. Try as she might, her first memory remained waking up on the cold Commons beach with Rougaru standing above her, offering her the safety and succor she'd so desperately needed. Paradise had been no less strange for her than it was for Temblor, although the silver stallion had been a dutiful guide, despite his duties as a herd stallion.

He speaks then of the pretty little mare that had already sought her out, and the fleabitten mare's face softens slightly. Shiloh, she was called. Their conversation had been brief, although Rae was aware enough to know that was her own doing rather than the girl's. It wasn't that Rae found her particularly objectionable. In truth, had Shiloh been a part of Rougaru's herd, the bloodmarked mare imagined that they would have gotten on well and that she might have even managed to make a friend.

But befriending her, much like trusting Temblor, felt a little like betrayal. Each day that she made the conscious decision to stay and to keep living felt a little like she was intentionally severing the connection she had to her silver-maned stallion. Of course, the other option was more terrifying, but that didn't change the guilt of her decision to stay here sans-Rougaru.

"Me?" She asked, incredulity creeping into her voice as she turned to look at him head-on. She would - begrudgingly - accept that she was the one most familiar with the jungle, but had she not just apologized to him for not following through? Why would he trust her with this, now? And not just with one mare, but with the others that would surely come. Given Rae's experience under Rougaru, she was certain that Temblor would soon fill the jungle with ladies he'd acquired which meant that the responsibility he was offering her was not just a temporary thing, but something he intended for her to continue doing.

"I don't-" She shook her head slightly, ears tipping forward and then back. The thought of being the one responsible for the survival of every new arrival was daunting and it made her think of Faelyn's first moments in the world, when the prospect of mothering a child she had never wanted had seemed like an impossible task.

"You probably know as much as I do," she offered as a rebuttal, her voice high with anxiety. "You don't want me," she began again with a shake of her head. She meant specifically that he would not want her for such a responsibility for any number of reasons, but the sentiment worked as a general statement as well. Rae knew well enough that she had foisted herself upon the stallion rather than brave the world at large; he didn't need to pretend to like her to earn her obedience. Even at her worst, Rae was lightyears away from the willful mares that seemed to catch the eyes of most stallions. She could not wrap Temblor around her little finger with the lustful teases of Vanya, nor command his respect with might as Monster did. She didn't even have a spark of Nyimara's fire, nor the self-confidence of the once Shore Queen, Xiomara.

She was a lamb, not a wolf.

"I can answer any questions you have?" The words came hastily, rushing in to provide a different alternative to that what he had in mind.