She shouldn't be focusing on it - not when her snow-white friend needed her so badly. But she simply couldn't pull her mind off of it. You know those types of feelings - the ones which implant and root deep within your mind, and force you to actualize their existence, before they will let go? Try as she might to focus on the matter at hand, Phae found that Soh's words had simply pushed her mind to a place that it could not return from, without at least some mention.

"Gaucho?!" The spy snorted, her tone incredulous, as she looked down at the little mare, wide-eyed with admiration and curiosity. "The one who fought for the Foothills? Sugar, I"ve seen him-" Lowered her muzzle lower, Phae's sea-green gaze shot about as her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. "-sugar, he's big. Huge - how'd you - how'd he?" At a loss for words, the sooty mare exhaled sharply. As the inappropriate images of her petite friend and that monster of a beast slowly faded from her mind, a different thought took hold.

Soh didn't agree.

Phae had always been the flirtatious type - first it was for protection, and then slowly as her confidence and abilities grew, it simply became a devious game. But now...had it gone too far? Was she really so skewed away from commitment and genuineness that her suggestions - ones that rang true and practical in her ears - would come across so far-fetched and unthinkable, to another? Sure, Soh was perhaps not the best judge; she was fairly naive in the big scheme of things. Note had been her first, hadn't he? But even so...Shame flooded Phae's belly - a sensation she was not normally accustomed to, and quickly began to dislike. Shifting her weight uneasily, she pushed these thoughts deep down, to focus on Soh.

"So just....don't. Don't bring it up, and if you don't want to, don't lie about it. I mean really, who's going to ask? And if they do...well....ya'll are a family, aren't you?" A dark thought crossed her mind suddenly: what if the foal didn't survive? Wouldn't that solve things? From her perch, Stella cried out sharply, biting Phae's withers as the thought passed into her small bird-mind. Jumping slightly, glad to be rid of that thought, her expression softened once more.

"And I mean, if all goes to hell, you're always welcome with us, sugar." She offered, referencing the Gray.