She was thanked by the cat-bird and it made her smile, a wide and lopsided grin stretching across her faded face, bloodstained eyes glowing with pleased self confidence, all early embarrassment washed away in the wonder of being thanked by something so majestic and strange, with such a wonderful voice. Emboldened, she again peered around the tree, and this time her feet followed her eyes and she stepped more firmly into the gathering, letting her gaze wash over the other two who looked like her except not because one was black and dripping and could draw strange things in the sky with his tail, and the other looked like the sky and had wings. In face, she would not have been surprised if the other was a piece of the sky that had just fallen out and now was prancing around in the form of a young girl. Curious.

She jumped as the cat-bird spoke again, for she had forgotten its presence in the allure of watching the strangers. It said it was making it cold and she realized that actually it was rather cold, compared to the outside, and while normally she wouldn't like that because plants died in the cold and so did animals, it was rather nice right now. "Thank you!" she said brightly, pleased that she could return the thanks that had so recently been offered to her. Flowers were sprouting upon her hide, bunches of inky blossoms blooming from thick, happy vines. One tendril even swirled around the red blotch on her shoulder, positioning its end to create the illusion of a poppy growing from her leg and up her side. She smiled at the black horse, not minding that he did not speak, because she did not notice that he wasn't making words. She liked how he looked though.

Besides, the blue filly was talking again, and now to the mare, and the little grey mare turned to look in surprise at her verbal attacker, sidestepping awkwardly and trying to muster a reply. "Poppy!" she blurts out, louder than she meant and somewhat uncertainly. In truth, she was not sure who had started calling her Poppy, or if that was even her real name - but if you think about it, how can you be sure? She knew that she did not remember a lot of things, and that someone might have told her that she was Poppy, but maybe she was actually Rose - who could say? So she did not call herself anything, but somehow Poppy worked when others wanted to give her a name.

But the little winged child was still talking, and she called the mare pretty, and suddenly she could not think because nobody ever called her pretty. She stared, and a lopsided smile caressed her face, and if she could have turned pink with blushing she would have but instead her flowers did it for her, except they just turned into climbing roses and coiled tightly around her legs. "You're pretty, too," she mumbled shyly; then, after a moment's thought, she realized that the filly Cirrus was right about the other thing she'd said, too. They were sort of alike - in fact, all of them were! "Lots of patterns. Different than others. You, too," she added, looking again at the cat-bird and the black stallion who still didn't speak to them. "What's name, art-maker?" Curiosity, innocent and simple: she wants to call him something, and maybe that he will make more art.