Guns’ nostrils twitch, snuffling the dirt caught between his worn black nails, wincing. Blood beads on his front right paw, and he rasps his long pink tongue over the cracked gray pad, the salty tang of the crimson burning in his mouth. There is a whimper caught in his teeth, but he doesn’t let it free. The Incendiary had driven them both hard to the Threshold, momentary respite from the outside world where unicorns and pegasi reigned freely.

Her eyes flick to him momentarily, and the collie’s white ruff comes up, hairs erect, before she returns to her playful banter. With his inquisitive eyes, Guns keeps watching, wary of this enormous black mare.

Rhanna drawls on, sarcasm embedded heavy in her deep voice, weighing down each word. The dunskin’s ears swivel away from her, cautious. No matter how empty the forest seemed, the trees listened, their leaves whispering, the cracked bark of their trunks groaning, moaning stories of old, stories that took hundreds of years to recount. Maybe the glimpse of a shadow there was cast by a pegasus who listened soundlessly, cloaked from their eyes in wicked magics.
No, the mare was most likely dead by now, throttled by pain and devoured by infection.

The buttermilk boy’s attention returns to the giantess, and his teal eyes narrow as he studies her face closely, looking for ambition or traitorous intents, but nothing can he find in these soulless black eyes. What she said set did not settle him. What did she mean by sticky? With any luck, she means simply that life in a herd can be dull; he does not like to imagine the giantess going on rampage. It would be a bitter fight, to force her onto her knees and bring her to bow her head to him, watch her swallow the phlegm in her throat and hear the hoarse rasping of her exhausted lungs. And then her punishment. There was no exile for traitors- there was only death.

He twitches his ears dismissively, though he would not deny his blood was roused at the thought of such a bloody fight. It would need to be determined if she actually cared for the Norm before he would invite her there.
And anyways, his three or four companions did not qualify as a herd persay, for more reasons than one.

“We do not yet hold sway over a herdland.” Ricochet answers with distaste, a faintly beleaguered expression coming over his scarred face. “And I do not imagine you will find herdlife- what is it you said, sticky?- with me or my companions. We are fighters, not silver-tongued diplomats. I do not lead weaklings, unless they show the potential and capacity to better themselves.” Well, that was not wholly true. He would lead the old and the young as necessary, and he recruited all and any; but he did lead warriors, at least for now, executioners and crafters, and not much in between.

From the shade of his tree, Guns peers up at them, pausing from the vigorous licking of his pawpad, ears perking forward, head cocking in mild curiosity. His tail wags, slowly and softly, over the dry soil, stirring up dust from the top layers.

Eyes widen in surprise as the mare declares her distaste for the unnatural, and for a moment Ricochet’s breath catches in his throat, choking him there. Here in the mottled shadows of the Threshold, he has found a mare with the right ideas. Excitement overrides his senses; his hindquarters flex and he arches his neck, blowing out softly through his nostrils. He reminds himself that she is an arrogant sort of girl for admitting it in the open, that harm will come of revealing themselves too early, but it is difficult, so difficult, to ignore the heart-lashing elation that rises in him.

“It is good to at long last meet someone who understands,” he laughs, full of optimism. “Rhanna, come and join us. It is our eventual goal to eradicate the world of such abnormalities… but I’m getting ahead of myself. The first step is to add to our numbers. We are much too few to even conquer a herdland at this point in time.” Ricochet grins toothily at her. “Help me change that, and then the world.”

But he pauses, because he can’t lie to her, even if he doesn’t really like her all that much. It would jeopardize all the work he had done if she nattered to every stranger about her racism. “If you take up arms with us, you’ll have to drop such honesty. Helovia is not yet ready to learn about the Empire, our forces are not large enough to face the hundreds. I would ask that you hide your true feelings about skyrats and hornheads. Even some of my outcast band think we are only a group devoted to the welfare of equines.”

R I C O C H E T - -
blam, you're dead