This girl is a gun, before you know it, it's done
And you'll be wishing that you crossed your fingers

arceline's brusque warning does little to deter the intruder that lurks within the woods. The brittle snap and crack of twig and leaf sets her nerves on edge as she peers into the shadowed forest, the wind at her back turning the canopy into a shifting abstract kaleidoscope of greens against the azure backdrop of the sky. Fluted ears plaster themselves against the pale curve of her neck and her body draws taut, prepared to defend her home from any would-be unwanted interlopers - especially those of the Lagoon and its ilk. She may have fallen from grace in the eyes of her sisters, but damn it all if she wasn't going to continue defending them, and the Peak, with everything she had.

But alone and with no one for miles to help defend her, her leg aching from her hours-long walk, a fight will most certainly not be in her favor should an unfriendly face materialize from the forest. It is a fact she is all to cognizant of as the sound of hooves against humidity-softened soil grows closer and closer, at war with the sound of her heartbeat that reverberates through her ears. The smattering of birds in the canopy above hush their song with the stranger's approach, the sudden quiet doing little to ease the prime minister's rapidly rising anxieties.

'Not quite...' a familiar voice rumbles from the forest, seconds before Asmodeus' profile comes into view. Of all the horses she had expected to come face-to-face with here, in this sliver of no man's land between the Peak and the Falls, he had certainly been low on her list. At the sight of him the bowstring tension in her body melts away near instantaneously, her sides deflating as she releases a breath she had not known herself to be holding. "You..." she huffs, her tone an odd cocktail of exasperation and relief.

His honeyed words are all too welcome to Marceline, a distraction served up on his silver tongue that she eagerly accepts. Anything, she thinks, to take her mind off all the problems she has caused the Peak, if only for a little while.

"Forget you? Impossible." She quips, flashing him a winsome smile as she crosses the creek towards him. The birds in the trees remain idle, the wind quieting to a gentle whisper. Strange, Marceline thinks, how the world seems to move a little slower when he was around. Yet not wholly unwelcome, when everything else in life seems to speed by in a blink.

Marceline circles around him once, her appreciative gaze drinking in the whole of him, before coming to settle next to him with ease, reaching out to brush her lips against his cheek in a greeting kiss. She lingers for a moment to breathe in his heady scent, enjoying the warm familiarity of him at her side. She pulls away with pale lashes fluttering, the corners of her mouth twisting into a coy smile. "You're awfully bold to be stepping hoof so close to the Peak. I'm sure half the ladies here would not hesitate to attack you, and the other half would want to keep you all for themselves."

She's sure it goes without saying that she herself would seize any opportunity to ensnare Asmodeus, to pry him away from whatever hold Nyimara likely has on him. Her scent in the Desert had been unmistakable, and ever since the witch queen's presence is a specter that haunts her thoughts whenever she thought of returning to the Desert, victorious in her conquest of the Hills. Nyimara has never struck her as the type to keep a stallion around simply because she enjoys his company or his dashing good looks. Chances are she was after something, just as Marceline was, and those somethings were likely one in the same. It seems inevitable that they would be at odds again, but Marceline found a small part of her looking forward to it. It had been too long since she had the pleasure of getting under someone's skin.

Still, Marceline has often wondered what promises they might have made to one another, and whether those commitments would supersede the ones she and Asmodeus had agreed upon. Only time would truly tell.

"So," Marceline says, fixing Asmodeus with a questioning look, "what brings you to my little corner of the islands, mon amour?"