”Can’t say or won’t say, you foolishly stubborn brute” She chides, her voice softening despite herself. Small, fluted ears pitch forward amid the charcoal tresses of her wind-swept locks as crystalline ooids continue to eye the crimson stallion with a mixture of apprehensive curiosity. Regardless of her feelings towards stallions in general, Nahawi has always proved respectful and even submissive at times. A true contradiction to everything she has ever come to expect. Even now, aged and in pain, the stallion maintains his stoic demeanor even as his body fails.

’I needed to say goodbye….’ The admission is not one she knows how to handle and far from one she ever expected. Dark ears twitch atop her skullcap as the exotic mare shifts back and forth uncomfortably on her hooves. Not even her own mother bothered to say goodbye when death knocked on her doorsteps. One minute she was there grazing among the rest of the jungle herd, and the next she was gone, disappearing into the deep shadows never to be seen again. Rumors ran wild, stories whispered among the Amazon mares that she had become one of the jungle spirits that guided lost souls. Khar’pern was not so foolish as to believe that. She knew that somewhere deep and forgotten, the mare's bones likely already had returned to Mother Earth….. So to say she had no experience with final goodbyes is an understatement. Part of her wants to chastise him, to brush off the heart-felt confession on his lips as fear and reassure him that nothing of the sort would happen…..

Yet looking at him now, seeing the pain behind those usually bright eyes and the crimson blood that stained his pink lips… the stench of death hung around him like decay on the wind. It would perhaps be hours or days, but the moonlight mare does not believe he can cheat death much longer than that.

So as he speaks, she merely dips her own head lower, a gentle smile settling across her lips. ”Thankyou Nahawi….” she murmurs, her voice much more tender than even she knows it could be. Long serpentine stretched out to allow her ashen labrums to press the lightest of touches against his russet cheek. Her own feelings on the matter, her own feelings of defeat, and the betrayal that Clarity had voiced loudly brought a lot of hushed whispers and even angry glares. Some, her own daughter included, felt as if Khar had brought much of the Lagoon’s furious ire down upon them for her obsession with Khyber. They refused to see or did not care to see that she was merely trying to prove their strength in stealing away the General. The continuation of their tryst that resulted in not one but three different pregnancies was just….. Between them.

But she would not burden the dying stallion with the turmoil that tore at her from within. That was something that she would face on her own, as she should. Instead, she retracts her touch, blinking silvery eyes at the pale blue eyes of the injured stallion, ”You have always kept your word. A true friend of the Peak mares…. Regardless of gender.” she adds, a chaste smile tugging at her lips.

Khar'pern

The jungle is dark but full of diamonds;