He follows the plains giant, head level with the larger stallion's shoulder, a polite distance between them. The conversation as they travel though is welcome- Imani is, as ever, eager to learn about the place he has arrived and he injects questions here and there. For the most part though, he listens. His odd eyes study the landscape, drinking it in. Perhaps here his luck has turned.

At moments when he finds himself not watched, Imani studies Tembovu. He watches and he struggles to hold back his judgement. He tried to acknowledge how much he does not know about the Elephant General, if that is who this is. He has heard the name, mentioned by Banderi in reverent tones and then later spat by those who told the tale of his treachery. But what really, did he know? Not even his name until, perhaps, now. He looks to the little elephant calf that accompanies them on the journey and the knot in his chest loosens. Many years have passed. That is a lot of time to change.

The striped unicorn picks his way delicately over the glass strewn ground. The bones in his mane click with every step, a subtle rhythmic music. Imani hardly heard it anymore, as familiar with it as his own heartbeat. Once they are safely free of the glass and Tembovu stops, Imani marvels. Every place he has passed through has had it's own sort of beauty (though it could not compare in some ways to his home). Here too, he found beauty and much more of it than he expected. The mist-wreathed trees seemed strange and otherworldly. It was as though they had journeyed into a place that was not quite real.

"It is beautiful." He murmurs, taking a note to find the cliffs. He wants to see the sun set off them. He wants to see everything. Then the quiet question cuts through his eagerness. His body, previously alert and tense with eagerness and a growing, childish excitement, slides back into the attitude of stoicism that he has been trained to. It is in some ways like taking up a mantle. In this case, the mantle of story teller. It does not matter that the wounds are still raw in his heart.

Then something comes out of the shadows.  Another.  He is different in a way that is unfamiliar to the shaman, but he cannot put his hoof on it.   The words he speaks though are not unexpected.  It is, in some ways, like a homecoming.  Good or ill?  That's what they all want to know.  He doesn't flinch from it, but his prepared answer is lost when the stranger turns his attention back to Tembovu.  

Handsome?

He blinks, confused.  His stance loses it's surety, embarassed and uncertain to the sincerity of the stranger's words.  Though he did not expect to be welcome by other Dorobians, he also did not expect to become the butt of a joke so quickly.  Finally he grasps for words- part of him aches to speak the plain's tongue, but he refrains.  They are not, and so he will not.  

"I... my luck is as fortune wills it, but it is contained so it does not bleed onto others."  He shakes his head, purposefully this time, and the fetish in his mane rattles.  Despite the other's chastisment, he will not leave the king's question unanswered.  "Dorobo is broken and shrunken, but it still lived when I left."

The answer is short, not the story he had perhaps intended to tell.  He does not tell of the blood and the bones in the grass.  He does not tell of the Banderi turning on their own.  It is enough, for now.

"Talk."
@Tembovu @Kiuaji

Imani