Her laughter meets his ears and draws a pleased smile to his lips, the humble young man fond of bringing such delight to others whenever he can and pleased that his joke had gone off well when so many others before it hadn’t. The question that comes next is common place for new arrivals who had not borne witness the wall’s grandeur before the darkness descended; looking at it now, it might be assumed that the structure of hundreds of years old, when in truth it hadn’t even lived a year.

"The wraiths came and destroyed it, is all we can assume," he answers, trying to fill in all possible gaps and wonder with his words, "we left to find sanctuary in the Heart with the others when the darkness fell upon us, and returned to discover the wall ruined. It looks about the same as this all along it." He says this sadly, for while he hadn’t really been overly fond of the wall itself, its birth had given him strong roots in this land; he had worked alongside both former and current rulers of the forest at the task, having followed a similar path himself as the mare who made it. From a seeming no one he had become one of the blessed, and for the life of him he could not figure out why or for what purpose he had been granted such responsibility.

He wasn’t well cut out for the job, as he saw it, but he surely would try to appease everyone as he had since his very first day in the mists of the Edge.

The wind brings change to the conversation as his baubles tinkle merrily in its breath, the white mare growing intensely interested in his withers – which is unnerving until he remembers that he indeed has things to focus on there other than the plain white splotch of his minimal coloring that rode the arch of his shoulders. His head rises instinctively and he holds it there, eyeing the curious woman through the corner of a blue eye and feeling his lips split into a broad smile as he realizes that she is quite enchanted with his worn memories. "Yes," he answers to the first stream of words that escape her rapture, and her next nearly make him explode with bewildered pride.

If a stallion can blush, he is at this point, his ears askew atop his head and his mouth in a silly smile that mirrors the gleaming of his eyes that flicker and dance with his happiness. It’s not that he hasn’t been praised before, but something about the way she says it all rings with so much truth that there is not a single gap though which his doubt can wriggle and that it is the symbol of his friendship with Ranjiri means all the more to him.

"It’s a charm of memories," he says softly, "specifically for my friend Ranjiri." Looking down at the unicorn with his swooning happiness still flooding him, he is struck with a sudden idea to repay her for filling him with so much confidence on this afternoon. He only hopes she does not ask him to explain why.

"I can make you something," he says, blue eyes lighting up brightly, "I don’t have any supplies with me, but I can work on it and you can meet me here in a few days. Whatever you’d like."


@[Sheba]