Unsurprisingly, her interruption is met with hostility at first - silently pinned ears and a grimace - but it melts at Kohelet's gentle insistence. The painted mare has no idea what has befallen her companion, but from up close it is easier to catalog her injuries. Copper taints the air around the reddish mare, confirming what the tobiano had already assumed from the dark scrapes and wounds across her coat. Her poll seems to have borne the brunt of the injuries, and the sight of mane and forelock clumping together with the scab makes her wince. Even so, picking that apart is a tender process that would require far more familiarity than they yet share.

At first, the nameless mare makes little in the way of speech and does not answer Kohelet's questions until she has crept up beside her. Her wet coat makes little headway against the tobiano's thick coat; unlike most of the Bay herd, she had been born and raised on Tinuvel winter's and resembled nothing so much as a giant monochrome teddy bear in winter. "You didn't really," she answered the mare with a soft laugh, "I've got plenty of warmth to share."

Her companion turns their attention inward, and flinches at some thought or memory that she does not share. When she does finally attempt to answer Koh's gentle question, panic seems to lace each syllable she offers and the painted lead hurries to try and soothe her. Whatever it was that had chased her into the Bay was clearly not immediately behind her. Plus the saltwater and condition of her wounds indicated that it had been some time since it had happened.

"It's okay," she murmured soothingly, her ears pricked toward the mare nestled against her side. "Sometimes that happens with head injuries, I think." She wondered, randomly, if it was a wound or a quirk of birth that had rendered her own lover speechless, but stored that worry away for later. "I'm Kohelet," she said more calmly than she felt. "And you've washed up in the Bay, on Tinuvel... do any of those words sound familiar to you?"