Ree.

Embarrassment.

Ree’s cheeks, were they capable, would have turned bright red in humiliation. Quickly she flounders to her hooves, stirring up the red dust of the Heart in her hurry, slender legs flailing miserably as scrambles in mortified panic. Both of the stallions immediately took the defensive, eyes suspicious and glaring, the wind walker’s wings unfurled and furious in the vast reach of their width. As she rises up out of the desert sand, fine, crimson soil coating her skin in an earthen sheen, she instantly steps backwards, head lowered and the curvature of her ears flat and subserviently drawn against the crown of her skull. She was no sneak; no creature of deception and strife, or dishonesty and malevolence. There was no room for such treachery and well thought out chaos in the confines of her ever tumultuous thoughts, riddled with the ignorance of her own innocence as she pondered in blatant naivety the dangers of this world that could consume her. Her hazel eyes are wide, doe like in their petrified fear, and they fall on the ink like apparition at the stallions feet- a miniature lion, mouth gaped and appearance vicious. The bay mare all but shrinks into the tall grasses at her back, wishing she could disappear, so overwhelmed was she from the ferocity before her.

Flee. Her mind screams at her to flee, to spin away and run back to the safety of the Throat. But just as her terror nearly drives her to bolt from the presence of these strangers, something changes. The looks of mistrust and misgiving soften, disperse, and are replaced with the curious eyes of kindness and amiability that were not previously there. The tiny lion that had roared its silent dissension of her appearance disappeared in a flutter, shadow, inky black whirling into the form of butterflies that glide in languid content on the warm breeze that floats past her. Bashful and withdrawn, she stands in nervous silence, eyes locked in fascination on the butterflies that hover just inches from her face. They were beautiful, the ebony creatures fluttering against the red of the Heart’s soil, and she reaches out toward one in timid adoration as it flies past her. The winged stallion looms beside his obsidian friend, his fair coat composed of creamy white and granite gray, and he offers her words of condolence and greeting in a uniform fashion. He does not introduce the second stallion though, and Ree glances at him briefly as she stands in unabashed trepidation, surrounded by the butterflies he had cast in her direction, hazel eyes hopeful in their warmth.

“Hello Kaj,” The young girl’s reply is meek, mild, and she tries to calm the racing of her heart as she follows the path of the butterflies circling about her. “I am Ree.”

She watches as Kaj motions toward the image painter with a keen strike of his hoof to the ground, and she takes note of where the black stallion has also begun the arduous process of unearthing whatever it was they were looking for. Natural curiosity makes the bay mare wonder what might lie beneath the surface of the desert sands that might be so valuable that they would hunt for it, but she would never ask. She also takes note of the way in which the two before her act, in a code of gestures and maneuvers that manipulate action into meaning, and she recalls that she had not yet seen the creator of the butterflies speak in the entirety of her time spent watching them from the tall grass. Humbled, sheepish, Ree remains where she stands, dread of what they might say or think of her keeping her from saying any more than she already has.