No? That didn't seem right. He wanted to be skeptical of the negative response, unable to imagine that an equine in a herd--or court, or troupe, or whatever they called themselves--wouldn't have at least a handful of relatives or acquaintances searching for them if they managed to miss an appointment or kept irregular hours. But the way Swahili said it... Her earnest disappointment was undeniable. This wasn't an easy truth she was sharing, but the apparent spirit he'd already seen in her wouldn't have dimmed like this over a lie. No one could be that skilled at lying. No, she was telling the truth...which meant her family wasn't all that concerned with whatever business she made her own.
He drew in a breath, trying all over again to steel himself. This isn't your concern. He'd made it a point a long time ago not to invite others into his life, to make their problems his, because of how often and quickly they turned away from him. Granted, that usually happened right off the bat, and that certainly wasn't the case for this interaction thus far, but- No, he'd made this promise to himself, he needed to stick to it. For his own safety. And yet...she was so quick, so eager, to turn the conversation back around toward the plants, toward his impressions and opinions, and damn it if it didn't tug at his stony heart just a little bit.
Ogden lowered his smoky green gaze to the spiderwort and after a second slowly released the breath he'd taken in, preparing himself to answer--until another question followed the first. A brow quirked over his eyes as he shot the desert mare a rather irksome look but he snorted, hiding a quiet huff of laughter beneath it. "No," he stated, deciding to answer the personal question first--in the most impersonal way he could. "It's just how my body is." Not even he was sure anymore what had caused it, or when it first became such a pronounced mound of dirt upon his haunches, but he had long ago stopped thinking about it. It was just a part of him, same as his antlers and fangs.
As for his opinion on the local flora...if he was going to do this, then he needed to be honest about it. "To be frank, I'm still learning what grows here," Ogden explained, a little of the hardened edge he liked to create in his voice beginning to soften. "I haven't lived in this region for very long, and there is still much of it I've yet to see. I don't know if I can properly answer until I have." But maybe he could give her something. He gestured once at the spiderwort by inclining his head, while the milkweed was moved behind him to tuck the stem into the dirt on his rump for momentary safe keeping. "I do recognize this, however. We used a variant of this where I come from, a breeding ground for pests. Works just as you claim."
