Argetlam's eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise as she leaned against his brawny form, and then he relaxed. They were friends, after all, and he felt comfortable beside her, under the heat of the hot sun and after talking about intimate things, things he had never told horses before. It was strange, he reflected, how two could become so close after only twenty minutes of talking. At least, he assumed it had been about twenty minutes, chatting and moving through the forest in idle, meandering ways. His tail flicked up, silver barrette glittering in a flash of sunlight, whisking across her flank as well, a dismal attempt doomed to failure to swat away the flies.

Amicable silence. Birds singing in the heat of Tallsun's day, an occasional flash of a ruby feather or tawny breast, a sapphire wing or black beak as they flitted from tree to tree. Here and there his amber eyes picked up on the flagging tail of a squirrel, sometimes red, sometimes gray, occasionally black, before they scurried about the craggy tree trunks, disappearing. Her heat against his flank, the warmth from her body emitting down to his heart. Argetlam sensed she might have private things to think about, but he also felt that she was comfortable with him, maybe more-so than with any others she had met, an enjoyable fact. He couldn't remember ever actually having a true friend, one he got to really know, in a long time. Isdira, with her snarky comments and crude ways, had teased him about it quite a bit.

The metal-bender felt he needed to give her a gift, a token of his friendship, from the metal surrounding, but it had to be a good gift, a fitting one for the mare. Just as his thoughts began to wander away, she spoke. A long, lengthy couple of sentences, falling just short of a verbal paragraph, with more than just mild praise for him in it, much to his embarrassment. If horses could blush, he would then; in any case, he felt hotter than before, almost as if he might erupt on fire in any moment. Never had he opened up this much, in his quiet mumbling, shambling ways, and never had a horse complimented him this much. Sacrifice. Honor. Much in you. Argetlam dropped his amber eyes as she pulled away to look at him carefully. "Ailith, you don't have to make so much out of it." He muttered shyly after she finished, cheeks burning. Make that whole body, right down to the ends of his dusty mane and dirty fetlocks.

"As for lack of words shared... we'll need to remedy that. Right?" Argetlam smiled inquisitively, butting his head against her left shoulder. Much to his confusion, only moments after she said her judgements were her own. What did she mean by that? I hope you understand that. Argetlam rolled them about in his head, trying to figure it out, examining them carefully, yet he couldn't find decipher them. Giving it up as a lost cause, he continued in companionable silence with Ailith, wondering what else could be brought up. Really he couldn't think of anything to say to her- he hoped she wouldn't be disappointed. She was just... very foreign. Out of here would be a good expression, he thought to himself.

To his evident relief, she picked up on another subject soon. Leader of the herd. Jackal, the King of Thieves, Argetlam knew, but he had been away for some while. In fact, Argetlam had never met him, arriving after the chief had left. "Jackal. They call him the King of Thieves, but maybe he's been stolen. He hasn't been around in a while." The metal-bender frowned slightly, brow furrowing. Where was he, actually? The herd needed him, with Romani and Willow missing. "Our healer, Willow, is missing. Romani was stolen- she's a warrior. My mentor, Aaron, is the mason. Paladin, the former leader and now storyteller, has been scarce. We have no general and we have no head shadow. I guess we're disorganized." They were. Argetlam felt a spike of concern go through him- they needed the general, and the healer, and the storyteller, and the head shadow. They were important for the herd. Not to mention the missing herd leader.