The irony was in his name. He felt empty. Too many days had passed where he was skipping time, his mind stuck in a fog over circumstances he couldn't control. It had been so long since he'd been focused on much of anything that the call shook him awake and he found himself there, amongst them all, a stranger on the outskirts, a newcomer still... even after all this time.

As though awaking from a dream, he glanced about him and saw them all, for the first time in most cases, though a few he'd met before... Now, his mind drew outward, pulling in the most important details through the antennae of his ears, whiskers, nose, and eyes. Then the orange chestnut bloke gave a sigh that seemed to go through his entirety, and he slumped, head to the height of his withers, gold-encircled pupils staring about him intently as each spoke. His silent mental-torture aside, he was only casually nervous around unicorns and pegasi now. So there was that. And a steady dose of adrenaline had done wonders on his bomb-proofing, but he was still occasionally an ass on stilts. A bigger issue was that he'd made little effort to make friends, which was suicide to a stallion in a wild place. It was, in fact, quite a miracle he was even still living, though likely the gods kept him around for a laugh. Maybe they pitied him. Clearly he was hanging on by a thread. The dimmest of creatures could see that. The fog of his brain had reached his eyes, his posture, his health... He was losing weight, but gaining... street cred? No, not even that. His biggest concern now was finding out what was going on, had been going on, while he'd been away... wandering off on his own and avoiding other creatures. How strange that he'd kept up with so little, had seen the comings and goings as someone who changes the channel every time the news comes on... He'd heard scatterings, of course. But nothing serious enough to bring him into fighting stance. And fighting for a home where you were a stranger seemed silly but... they'd let him stay. They'd left him to his own devices, never chasing him out or turning him away. He owed them that much, and for that, the knowledge he was gaining at this meeting made a fire charge inside him. A very small, kind of sad fire, but a fire nonetheless.

He wanted action. He wanted to perform some kind of task. To help where he was needed, to offer his services to those that had let him stay, even when he'd done little to repay them thus far... It was now or never. He lifted his head ever so slightly, silly beast that he was, and he let out a very soft, "Might I assist? As a... er..." He paused, considering, an ear tilting to one side, then it straightened and he continued, "A fortifier of defense here? A bodyguard perhaps for the royalty? Someone should really... stay and watch over things too, shouldn't they?"