Tiamat smiles brilliantly when the black stallion moves forward to join her. His slow gait and drudging body language clearly say that he is anything but eager to join her—much like a child who is forced to do their chores by their mother—but the ocean mare doesn’t acknowledge it—he is helping, and that is all that matters to her. In her mind, she is making a new friend, nondiscriminatory between first impressions (which this guy doesn’t exactly put one off as happiness and friendliness) and open to the company of everyone. He has yet to give her a reason to assume otherwise.

When the black stranger speaks—his excitement for their task highlighted by the cynicism in his voice—Tiamat lifts her delicate head a few inches from the misshapen pile that she has gathered, her white eyes peering up at him through her long forelock. “Gumdrops?” She muses, mostly to herself, her voice a whisper of breath and likely not heard by her newfound companion, “they sound delicious!” She giggles, assuming that what he speaks of is some type of candy or sweet…it sure sounds that way at least…and there is never a wrong time for candy, is there?

She blushes beneath his compliment, her smile widening bashfully and her cheeks growing pleasantly warm. Tiamat is definitely not a superficial mare—what someone looks like surely can’t dictate the inner beauty that flowers in their heart—but still, it’s not wrong of her to enjoy the harmless praise, right? It does feel good to be noticed, for both physical and (more importantly) spiritual things.

“It’s a pleasure of mine as well, Nox,” the blue mare says kindly, rolling his name over in her mind and matching it to his face, trying to commit it to memory, “thank you for your help.” Her lighter laughter mingles with his rougher, deeper tones—he the coarse rock to her tinkling rain.

When Nox lowers his head and pushes the snowball she had made, it makes it bigger and the blue mare’s smile broadens over her lips. Already her contorted little pile is starting to take shape…into something. “What should we make it into?” Tiamat asks him, her white eyes twinkling as she raises her head, looking to the black stallion. She purses her lips, sticking her tongue out a little bit in her deliberation before she walks forward towards their pile, nosing it around to add to it. “What about a puppy?” She suddenly exclaims, whipping her head around and looking to Nox with delightful glee in her expression.

“Puppies are adorable,” the ocean mare continues, lowering her head to start another, smaller pile for the head—perhaps they could make it lying down on its stomach, which would be easier. Humming happily to herself, Tiamat finishes the head and noses it over to the body, pushing to attach the two together. Quite pleased with her work, she glances over again to the darker stallion. “How long have you been in the Basin, Nox?” She has never seen him before, but with her recent absence, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been around. She is eager to meet and catch up on what she had missed.

And at last I see the light.