A hard, cold grunt forced through Ashamin's nostrils and clenched teeth as he threw himself against a rock and it slowly budged from where it had fallen. He thought vaguely about a better system, something to drag the rocks on, but Ki'irha's answer caught him off guard and he lost his train of though almost instantly.

Her eagerness surprised him--the gift, even more. Ashamin was surprised the mare was willing to give him the time of day, let alone a present. He stood shocked for a moment, letting the rock roll one more time on its own as he stood still. His two companions bounded around and in front of it; comically, Lochan's dark mists flooded at the boulder as if his magic could confuse and stun the rock. Rakt only let out a low bellow, a quiet and soft sound that accompanied the patient kicking of pebbles from the broken down cave to the clearing before it.

When at last the painted buck returned to himself, he blinked and nodded at Ki'irha dumbly. Obediently he lowered his nose to the oblong package, clearing away leaves from its blades and revealing the ancient haladie. The haruspex looked upon it in awe, tracing the familiar patterns of its carvings and waves. The steel of its blades like the rocks of his homeland, the stars carved upon it the ones he held dearest.

"Ki'irha..." he breathed, the name of the mare he cared for so deeply hot and complicated on his lips. "It's beautiful, you..." he paused, ears perked as she explained the details of obtaining the item. "...You definitely shouldn't have," Ashamin said hesitantly, nervously. He didn't deserve this kindness, this gesture. Last time he had seen her she had welcomed him to war, told him he practically deserved his injuries. And he had, after what he'd said to her. So why this?

"Thank you," he murmured before picking up the blade by its beautiful leather handle, turning his head this way and that, giving it one good sharpening scrape along the boulder and wishing he could test it out now on some stray, offending tree. What about a tree? Maybe a few of those, felled, could make his system a reality.

Before he got too into the daydream, though, Ki'irha reminded Ashamin that it was he who had spoken first--he who had invited her here. He looked nervously around, first catching eyes with Lochan and Rakt and then looking, in the distance, at Rexanna. Ashamin had intended to apologize and tell Ki'irha all about the night with the thief, figuring that he had already been in enough trouble and what more could that confession do, but with Ki'irha so forgiving now the thought of losing her favor again turned his stomach.

He dropped the haladie, watched it tumble to the ground and glint on the earth, and looked back at Ki'irha. What had he wanted to talk to her about, what had he wanted to say? Maybe apologize, maybe explain that he hadn't felt so cold to her, try to describe all the warmth within him that was made for her, but... "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for any hard feelings. After our spar, I... I got a little out of hand. Injuries, you know. Hard to think straight with them, even if they are fairly earned." Carefully, Ashamin tried to return her wink with a shaky gesture that he wasn't sure came off in earnest. He wasn't going to tell her he wanted her to come closer, and he wasn't going to tell her about Rexanna. Not now, not yet.

"And thanks for this, really," Ashamin said firmly as he gestured for Rakt to pick up the haladie for him so he could continue his work. "I'm glad everything's alright with us, this means a lot." It felt a little hollow, perhaps because the haruspex had more to say, but it was true enough for him to move deeper into the cave's wreckage and wrap his body around another boulder to push.

"Hey Johnny!" Ashamin called out, not giving Ki'irha time to say much more, to get into anything too deep here and in public, "we should rig up a system for heavy loads like these, with some logs and rope we could make much shorter work of this sort of thing."

Hollow words, but something.

""

ASHAMIN