[Just posting around Kimber, but she can jump in any time :o]

The buttermilk boy watched the painted lady and son arrive with their own emotions still flashing in the light of their eyes. Ricochet let slip a smile to find it was an anger that burned in them, similar to his own. He could not help but feel a small triumph that Paladin and Soleil were meeting some hostility from the herd.

The boy excused himself smartly, although Ricochet wouldn't have minded his company, still intrigued by what Aaron had to say in the meeting. Would he be a prime candidate for an apprentice, or was Aaron's heart already nestled beyond Ricochet's grasp? As Solstice turned her focus towards him Ricochet cocked his hip in a casual stance, ready to converse freely with this mare he unexpectedly found as an ally. She seemed to think similar.

It was such a confusing game of friends and enemies Ricochet played. Solstice, much like Smoke, had always been at conflict with Ricochet's core purpose in life - to eradicate all species non-equine. He supposed his methods, preferring raw bloodshed, were no less ideal to them, but any method was likely unfavorable in light of exterminating species they seemed to grossly cooperate with, and willingly. Somehow his father had earned respect despite his racist intentions and similar goals. Maybe he was just less outspoken. Yet here he finds Solstice in agreement with him over one thing, and Smoke he stood beside proudly athe meeting, and follows her lead in some aspects, gratefully. An odd position he stands at indeed.

A simper breaks Ricochet's pursed lips, amusement pulling his lips as he notes Solstice's pointed intention not to say Soleil's name. Does she truly despise her so? Ricochet does not hate the mare, but he thinks her unfit to lead above, or even beside, Smoke, and he feels her crimes never answered for. "She gets praise and titles when her crimes have been left unanswered. Paladin speaks of equality but he seems to have left out justice." Soleil should be beaten into submission for abandoning her herd, her family, on a mere whim. And to a unicorn no less! Truthfully Ricochet did not find it much in him to forgive, much less the transgressions Soleil had committed. So although he did not hate her, he wished her dead all the same. "The unicorn thinks with his wrong head," Ricochet muttered, annoyance casting his tail to swat his flanks. He did not like the Valiant much better, but he especially didn't appreciate the favor cast upon his mare. All of it left a bad taste in his mouth. He swirled his tongue in an attempt to be rid of it.

"What can we do though?" he glanced up at Solstice, teeth clicking in frustration. "If that other, Indy, spoke true she is injured badly, I will wait until she is whole lest she cry out disadvantage. I may not stay until then though, if the dun expects an apology from my lips." Ricochet snorted, too headstrong to bow when it would benefit him. "And the herd... the herd is divided. Some will support Paladin and Soleil regardless. To make a bold move now will only upset everyone further. There will be anarchy..." Ricochet trails off, wisdom coming from his lips in this surprising hour of burnt out tempers and tired thoughts. Such complaints are not ones he would normally consider, but he is young and even when he ruled beside Aera he looked to her for assistance in leading them. Annoying a few here and there is inevitable and pissing off someone that deserves it he does not mind, but inciting a mutiny in the horses he hopes to lead to glory will drive him to restlessness. In some small aspect, Ricochet is always seeking validation and praise. To pit himself against everyone would only ruin him.

Solstice's remark brought a quipping laugh from Ricochet, though it soon soured into a frown. On one hoof he would love to see the unicorn's heart broken by that greased up bit of tail, but on the other hoof it made him sober to the effects she'd left in her previous wake. He was at least somewhat privy to the relationship with Terrador, but Ricochet wondered at what more Solstice hinted to.

Little of it was truly important though. Fact still remained that Soleil had done far too many wrongs to be so easily made right.

"...what he spoke of Smoke," Ricochet presses when Solstice offers little more explanation towards Soleil not being the only one there with the Sun God. "She carries that foal, that of the god's?" There was a touch of wonder to the stallion's voice at this. He was not a very religious stallion, placing most his prayers and swears in Nieque's name, not even a god in his own right, but some things were hard to deny hard as you might try to argue around them. Ricochet knew little of these lands and their gods, but all the same the idea that Smoke partook of that act left Ricochet reeling. He could not fully wrap his mind around the idea of a god procreating with a mortal (how was it done, how different did it feel?) much less what offspring it would bear.

How much the mighty mare must have given up. Even now she suffers the plight of pregnancy, unable to fully argue for her deserved title because she protected the herd.
The Tome Guardian had once tried to teach Ricochet that brute force could not always win out. He thought fondly of that quest now when considering what Smoke must have had to do to put herself in this position. Indy was so quick to favor Soleil who had nothing to show but burns incapacitating her from proper leadership and the risks and duties with it. To this Ricochet snorted, admonishing her further.

Solstice continued on, but these coming words were not much to Ricochet's liking, although he expected them all the same. Likely she'd know his response already, but he'd lay it out plain for her lest she accuse him of deceit otherwise.
"I am grateful of your support, you could not know how invaluable it is, particularly when many seem to still favor the Valiant and his whore, despite the proof." Ricochet shifted his weight, unsettled by the inevitable rift between them. "However I cannot promise this, equality." He sighed, irritated by his own beliefs but more so by hers. Why was equality so great, did no one gag at the smell of pegasus feathers or recoil at the sight of horns protruding from heads? It was simply abnormal! "I truly cannot stand the other kinds, and it will wear my patience to endure it as long as I am able in this setting." He stuck his tongue out in disgust, snorting his displeasure with a cloud of gunpowder. "I wonder what has happened to your senses, that you can tolerate them so?"

"That's incredibly stupid," he retorted to Solstice's clarification of the god's attack. Ricochet furrowed his 'brow in concentration, eventually shaking his head in exasperation. "I do not know these gods, do not much believe in such anyway, but only those with no will to live would openly attack a flaming immortal. Even I am not so brash." He grinned at the last bit, hoping the small joke would lighten the effect of him questioning the intelligence of this mare and the rest of the herd that had participated. In all respects it seem Smoke had made the wisest choice, but even so, it now put her at a disadvantage. Pregnant she could not fight without an impact on herself and the child - although if the damn god spawn perished, who would it hurt? Yet Ricochet knew she would not risk such, and her own health would be in too much a danger.

Such is why mares were naturally weak.

Solstice continued, speaking of Aarde, Cielo and Imiq, to which Ricochet snorted dismissively. Misguided children given too much power too early in Ricochet's eyes. If they had been trained properly they would not have met such an end, a fault of poor mothering no doubt.

Solstice's admission that she tolerated the other species for the sake of the livelihood of Helovia astonished Ricochet however. His features perked up, immediately intrigued and surprised. He had never even considered that she might still dislike all of them, but sacrificed it for the sake of something greater. "I have to admit," Ricochet began with a slow drawl to his tongue, suggesting deep consideration an thought. "I certainly don't want any repeat of those black devils." Could he be as honorable as Solstice and coexist for the sake of something greater than his own feelings?

"But I don't think war between the species is as much to blame for that as a negligent guardian and a body toll garnered over centuries of existence." Ricochet closed his eyes briefly, trying to phrase himself the best way to try and make this mare understand. "Isilme was old, so they say. She had seen good times and bad, and though she drank much blood, most did not die in the wars." He leveled her with a serious gaze, his lips terse with stubbornness. "The old, the weak - they perished, as they should. The strong lived on and built over the bones of the fallen. Life continually does this. Even plants will soon bloom over a felled trunk, finding nourishment from the dead and the broken." He sighed and shook his mane to resettle it as it had begun to fall into his eyes.

"It is in our nature Solstice. We are drawn to our own kind, we populate better with our own kind, and we will protect, defend and bleed for our kind. The Originals went to war because they had overgrown the room provided for them. Peace had given them too much - more foals meant more mouths to feed meant less food and less shelter and less water. They warred because they had to fight for the survival of their kind, for the good of their kind. Senseless war is just that, senseless, but war in and of itself is not to be blamed." Had anyone ever considered the negative impacts of peace? They would overrun the land like excess deer when all the wolves had died, and then the land would wither and eventually the deer would wipe themselves out. Ricochet didn't intended to be wiped out - he would exterminate all of the scum and leave the healthy, the beautiful, the worthy left to populate this land. They would know their limits and they would cultivate and grow from the pools of blood that would father. He would be the flowers sprouting on a rotting tree.

Kimber had spoken up at some point and Ricochet turned to eye her steadily now, cautious to place her mother in too poor of a light but not fully in agreement with the grulla mare. "Learning is important, and the god's foal will need instruction if it is truly to avoid the same blunder of Aarde, Cielo and Imiq - whom were left to their own devices. Yet pride and hatred can provide some of the strongest motivations. Same as love and honor, yet none ever seem to warn little foals of these traits which are just as deadly and liable to sin."