Natraj welcome's Hamlock's advances, leaping and swatting playfully at the little bird as it flies past, one of his three tails grasped within its claws. The girl watches him carefully, fixedly, her attention locked on him in a valiant yet fruitless endeavor to keep her turbulent emotions out of her face. She listens to the mare with a gold ear half-cocked, the copper one still trained on the antics of the companions-

-That is, until the mare utters yet another familiar name. At once her head darts back up, some excitement and relief palpable in her face. "I know Kahlua!" Fire Dancer exclaims, her body twisting as she speaks, tail twitching and hips turning to bring the stone which hides among her braids into the paint's view. "I helped her, once. She gave me this." She gestures at the stone which glows in the night: yet another piece of the armor she wears in defense of the encroaching dark. Kahlua is a bright point in the copper child's memory, even if their encounter ended on a strange note. The girl frowns, moon-slashed expression furrowing as she regards the painted equine's abrupt retreat. "Is she well? I should like to see her again."

She hadn't realized the absence of the mare's - Alysanne's - name until it is spoken, and the girl repeats it softly, "Alysanne," a tentative smile on her inky lips. Onyx eyes regard the mare, a healer like her- though in a way she supposes she knows this already, given the nature of their most recent encounter. Still the confirmation relaxes the girl, and her expression opens, the embers which surround her settling into her mane. She has yet to be hurt by a healer. Part of her wonders what happened to Alysanne's friend, the one she had saved so long ago- did the mare remember that, at least?

Onyx eyes blink. She will ask about it later, if she stays.

If.

"My name is Tandavi. My brother is Natraj." She gestures toward the kitsune, who looks up from his play long enough to bark an eager greeting. "We were born beneath these trees. Our family lived here..." she trails off, swallowing, fighting off the surge of sorrow which clamors against her mind. From the corner of her eye she can see Natraj bounding toward her; he becomes a comforting presence at her hooves and in her thoughts, offering his own sorrow and bolstering her strength. The girl blinks, her eyelashes moist - but no tears fall. Not today.

"They're gone now," she continues, "They left, when the wraiths came. But we thought we might come back... for a little while. If we can."