The air shifted around her like water, thick with heavy smells and loud, sharp birdsong. Wrens flitted to and fro through the foliage, dipping and dancing above her slender bones with a cherubic innocence that irritated her to no end. Manon still wasn't sure exactly why she would have been placed on a patrol with Tandavi - a woman she'd never met, nor had the inclination to meet. She was a nurse and Manon a sneak, hardly two worlds that needed to cross in the form of a patrol. A flash of discontentment struck and her soft lip curled at the thought of the hierarchy she was so bound to. She had never appreciated the idea of royal superiority, finding the whole concept foolhardy and vain - and yet, here she was, following the orders of her King and Queen, Generals, Spectres, and Gods knew who else was seemingly in charge of her. It was not a pleasant thought. She trusted Tembovu and Alysanne to the running of the Worlds Edge purely because they were interested in doing so: she certainly had no inclination to start organising it's many rules and regulations.

Aside from that meagre and impersonal trust, she cared and trusted for only one other: Toulouse. Their relationship, if it could be called such a thing, was based off of mutual ideologies and had blossomed further into more of an understanding - though the two still harboured secrets from one another. Those secrets, though, had nothing to do with present times and all to do with their past. The thought created a pause in Manon's elegant step, the idea of her family still living somewhere both reassuring and harrowing. She had no wish to return to her homeland, and further still, no desire to see anyone but her sister, Swallow, and even that inclination was small and faded. Her Helovian crew was certainly small. She had met many others, and some were well placed in her memory - yet none really stuck, perhaps with the exception of Sikeax. That relationship was better left to later investigation, it's tangles went too far and too deep for Manon to truly understand.

Bringing herself back to the present long enough to notice that she had left Tandavi wandering alone, Manon doubled back with ease and grace, inclining her head and calling out to the sun soaked mare: "Find anything?"

---

@Tandavi <3