The sound of a disturbance in the wind turns his eyes towards her, who fills him with the most trepidation and awe he has felt since he first encountered Semira all those years ago. She is a blaze of colors, as if a rainbow had fallen on her during her birth and stained her only the brightest and most vibrant of its hues, and he cannot help but gawk awkwardly at her because she is both beautiful and horribly strange to him; her legs are streaked with white, the colors plunging into the pristine ivory that wrap about her face and wings as well, and he cannot help but feel ordinary in the face of such a thing.

He is the color of the earth, the rich brown of soil and the deep shades of charcoal, rimmed by clouds. She is a prism of color and splendor, and for a moment, he does not move at all, ponders stepping away from her.

And then she speaks. Well, shouts almost at him, the sternness in her voice planting his massive frame quite squarely where it is, easily intimidated by the smaller mare in his timid and unsure nature. She stretches out her wing as she bullishly mentions a series of words that make his eyes broaden in bewilderment before he realizes she means wing feathers. Slowly, he bobs his head up and down in agreement, not knowing for sure that that is where the feathers had come off of Ranjiri’s wing (she had been missing many) but not wanting to go too far into details with such a vibrant and stern woman. He’d only stammer and stutter and make her genuinely shout at him.

Blessedly, he hears the arrival of another around him, at first feeling more panic eek into his pores until he smells the familiar scent of sand and golden feathers, turning his head ever so slowly to look upon Ranjiri. His confidence suddenly floods him again in the presence of a friend, one who he figures won’t let things escalate to a point of panic as they had that long ago afternoon in the willow grove, and he smiles humorously at the notion that she has, quite ironically, arrived into the situation anyway.

He was spared a walk to the Throat in exchange for a near heart attack here and now – splendid.

"Ranjiri!" he calls to her as she says her greetings, shuffling towards her nervously as he looks over at the colorful mare and smiles wryly and in apology for his ridiculousness (even he knows he looks like a cowardly giant at this point), "I was just meeting, erm… well her. She was admiring the bauble I made from your gift." He smiles at the black and gold mare quite happily before returning his eyes to the colorful woman to answer her question. "I use magic to create the glass. The feather was Ranjiri’s," he explains before a short and sharp inhalation of breath takes his words, blue eyes striking over to Ranjiri in memory of his gift for her, "oh! I made you something, too."

He turns his frame around ever so slightly and swishes his tail at Ranjiri to draw her attention to the beads that sing jovially as they slip upwards and back down in the motion, striking each other and gleaming in the faint light allowed from the overhead branches. "I used the rubies from that pool there to color them. Normally I’m not so far south of the Edge." He tries to make the last statement open ended for both the women, but he’s much more comfortable talking to sweet Ranjiri than the pretty-but-scary lady who had dropped from the skies. Its not that he doesn’t understand that some people aren’t as tactful as others, but he can’t take too many risks, not ever since what had happened to Shadow and the display of rage he’d felt after Azarel had intruded on his serenity back at the wall.

@[Bellona]

The brightly colored mare makes him nervous, a thousands kinds of nervous, and he hovers closer to Ranjiri as if the pretty mare can defend him from the warrior before them who is simply curious – albeit a little rough around the edges. A combination of both these things is evident when she snaps her name at the crafter and he visibly flinches, ears splaying and eyes growing wide amidst his own words in a silent apology.

"They’re a gift," he says with a soft laugh as Ranjiri bashfully exclaims over her beads and claims to not have a thing to give him in return, "I thought they’d look pretty in your hair."

Aside from the initial glance spared to Ranjiri on her approach, the flamboyantly hued pegasus ignores his friend and carries on with her inquiries directed towards him, despite the dark hybrid’s gentle way of dealing with the frightening bluntness of the woman; the aggressive thing even bulls over the words he shares with his friend, giving him little chance to answer his gold tinged companion and interjecting her own inquiry of the Edge. It stirs a new emotion in the stallion – one of aggravation, born from the insult given to the place that had welcomed him and given him shelter for his entire time in the land of Helovia.

Thankfully, the shy stallion doesn’t have to answer; Ranjiri slips her own reply in and he finds himself chuckling with amusement at the pun interlaced in her words, his aggravation momentarily forgotten. That is true, he supposes; the few times he’d been near the edge of the sea, he’d been mightily impressed with the steepness of the fall. Deciding to elaborate a little bit on his homeland for ignorant Bellona’s sake, his deep voice rolls forth once his humor has subsided. "Ranjiri’s right. It’s an ancient wood that overlooks the sea, named for the cliff that borders its northern rim," he smiles, trying to overcome his unease with the harshness of the feathered war maiden with his kindness, "the only thing I’m in danger of is gravity, as are all of my kind."

His smile loiters as Bellona turns her attentions to Ranjiri, calling her you instead of using her name that he’s used already. Her annoyance is almost plain, but she covers it well her good heartedness, as she had when he’d first met her and her friend, Roskuld.

Roskuld, now that he thought about it, was about as bad as Bellona. No wonder Ranjiri was doing so much better with the prismatic dove than he was. He nods as she mentions the Gods, and prayer, his own memories stirring a fear and angst within him; he’s not had much luck with the keepers of the earth.

"The shrines of the four are west of here, southward down a peninsula," he says, glad that for the first time in the entire conversation that he doesn’t sound like a mewling kitten of a man and rather more like his usual calm and genial self.