These boundaries between one major territory and another seem to defy conventional logic, the roads leading not from point A to point B as read on a map, but from one time and place to another altogether, the way alive with a palpable flow and direction, as if the benign looking forest were really a vessel being drawn along some flooded waterway, effortless to follow, but impossible to turn against, conscious, insistent. She wonders at this as she walks, quietly complacent to the not-so-forest’s wishes.

“I’m looking for somewhere new.” She admits. “Somewhere I haven’t been, but close enough to where I have, if that makes sense.” If a forest would care to listen to the endeavors of an eccentric soul, she thinks to herself. “I’m – Oh!” All at once the trees come to a stop, their sheltering canopies opening onto a plain of alabaster white. “How pretty!” She exclaims, stepping lightly into the powdery snow. Ears pricked, she lifts her hooves to examine the impressions beneath, exhales clouds of staccato breath just to watch the condensation swirl and vanish. “The trees were so thick, I hardly knew it was winter.”

With a sweep of her lion-esque tail the rose dappled mare sends a spray of glistening crystals into the air, smiling at the soft shhh they make in rustling together and the way that they glimmer as they fall. It’s a childish movement, but she’s never understood why childish things are so shamed. What’s wrong with being happy, she’d question, but the disapproving only shake their heads as if there were a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to enjoy life. With a smirk she confides aloud, “But I’ve found that the wrong way tends to be more enjoyable anyway.”
________________
 
"Speak"

A courteous ahem from behind turns the mares head. She stiffens for a moment, surprised by the sudden appearance of gold and feathers upon the snow, but the stallion’s expression is quiet, almost soft to her eyes, and when he speaks it’s with a reserved but identifiable warmth. Relaxing, she nods and smiles affably, the slightly fraying braid of her forelock bouncing against the forward plane of her face. ”It’s undeserved kindness that deeply affects. Altruism being against preservation and all that.” One black rimmed ear turns back uncertainly. ”It’s no intrusion, though I hope you’re not here to tell me I’m trespassing. I’m not from around here, and mean no offense.”

Strangers tend to be more forgiving of a young woman invading their borders than of other individuals, but the chances of being met with open arms are still significantly lower than any other possibility. This caution hums in the back of her mind, dividing her interest between wanting to speak farther and wanting to avoid unnecessary hardship. ”Somnus, I’m Adelheid, just a wandering philosopher.” Alone, she checks off on her mental list. Nonthreatening, she marks again, following the patented sissy-girl’s rubric for achieving nonviolent encounters.

”I saw the unblemished snow and couldn’t help myself.” Another smile, a slight tilt to her brows that suggests youthful indiscretion, innocence, and then a question on the heels of these platitudes. Harmless, right? ”Do you live here?” She wants to ask so much more, her tongue pressing tight to the inner edge of her teeth, but again a murmur of careful consideration holds her back, bids her to just follow the script.
________________

”speak”
@Somnus

He seems surprised at first, his focus narrowing and intensifying on her for just a moment, sending an electric jolt of pride running through the mares core. She preens in the attention, well aware that her own description is at odds with the archetypal picture of the eccentric, elderly Scholar locked in his rat-packed tower full of decades worth of worldly knowledge. She is quite young for such a role, but she’s learned that age doesn’t necessarily translate to experience, though when confronted she’ll admit (with some venom) that they correlate, time being an essential element. She’ll be quick to assert that it’s the time you put into it that matters though, not just how long you’ve existed, a concept that many an elder peer has been painfully and infuriatingly oblivious to.

Pleasantries exchange as expected from there, the stallion appearing both genuine and accommodating in his responses. She likes the way that he laughs quietly between ideas, the sound reassuring and encouraging to her approval-starved ears, and at last she relaxes, cocking her hips to rest one hind hoof on its toe, a well-known sign of trust in the equine language. Perhaps this too is a sign of her youth, being too quick to trust, too susceptible to first impressions, but she decides then and there that she likes the golden pegasus, pushing away the voice of caution in her mind.

“Delumine, in Dawn Court, in Novus.” She repeats carefully, trying to simultaneously commit them to memory and recall if she’s ever heard those names before, drawing a blank on all counts. “I am somewhere new then. My home was called Trofelden - or part of it anyway.” She corrects, eyes dropping, turning back to the forest for a moment. ”It’s been segmented now.” She tenses at the oversimplification, awkwardly shifting in the silence after, her own discomfort making a benign pause in the conversation feel like a vacuum demanding explanation.

Her body language is too telling, too vulnerable. She knows it, but the avoidance and embarrassment in her expression is more likely to be assumed from something nefarious than what it actually is, some trauma, some painful memory, not the childish fear of disapproval, of revealing something close kept and important only to be dismissed or ridiculed. Shallow, she thinks, to let the man believe she’s some damaged damsel when she isn’t, but she also thinks that he’ll leave the subject alone if she does, let her share with him what she wants to when she wants to, so she says nothing more, despite the heat of shame creeping into her dappled cheeks.
________________

”speak”
@Somnus Sorry for the delay!