Hemlock, not exactly experienced with owl-kind or possessing any sort of intuition, assumed that Irma was ignoring him again and puffed out his pale brown feathers in indignation. He was half of the mind to dive-bomb her and see if she noticed him then but instead he shuffled a little on his branch, dislodging some snow, and grumbled softly to himself, wondering if he should go in search of Sacre or Tandavi so he could play with their foxes instead. But he didn’t trust Mauja enough to leave Alysanne alone in his company, nor did he want to be far away from his bonded if she needed him.

The painted mare’s attention was on Mauja, watching for his answer to her question as much as she was listening for it, but his stance hardly gave away much. Really, she had not expected him to answer and if he did she had expected a brush-off. She waited patiently to see what would happen and it surprised her to hear him state rather simply and with a tone of finality that he was awful.

Surprise and concern darkened her gaze, wishing there was something she might do so that things would not be awful for him. She was running through her options, which were limited considering their lack of any sort of bond and her general lack of understanding anything about him, when he surprised her again by speaking - returning the question to her. Her green eyes widened and she felt a strong desire to run from that question.

If he had given her honesty, after all, how could she do anything less?

“Same.”

She answered his question, the word little more than a puff of air from her mouth - a whisper in the silent snow. But she didn’t have the courage to meet his eyes when she responded, angry with herself for admitting out loud that things were not all sunshine and roses. But it went deeper than that - as soon as she breathed that word she considered how inappropriate it was. What was her pain, all psychological and surely all her own fault, compared to Maujas? How could she possibly assume that what she was feeling was anything close to what he was? It was awful for her, yes, but on the grand scale of things it really wasn’t so bad. So what if she hadn’t been able to sleep? And when she was she was awakened by nightmares that fueled her doubts in the daylight? It wasn’t like she hadn’t found little pockets of happiness recently, especially on the days when her time was taken up with on of the Edge’s foals.

So maybe it wasn’t awful, she just knew the self she was now was more awful than what she had been before, but there was no way for her to snatch the word back up again.

She sighed quietly, distracting herself from her weakness by focusing on Mauja - her green gaze drifting back to him. She did not move toward him again but made a small gesture with her head, inviting him to exit the trees if he wished. Alysanne did not really expect him to get any closer, she would not be all that surprised if he turned around and left right now, but she welcomed the distraction that his company offered and maybe her company would offer some distraction for him as well.

Her voice came out a little stronger when she spoke again - of course, because she wasn’t talking about herself now - but it was still quiet. She wouldn’t be offended if he chose to pretend he didn’t hear her. Her green gaze even drifted upwards again, towards the snow again, as though Mauja-the-ghost might disappear if she looked at him too much. “You can talk to me about it, if you want.”

If you could only understand—through my heart and through my veins

I gave it all,

I'll give again.