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She had not heard Ruka take up step behind her, missed even the odd shuffling outside of the doorway as he neared, she was so drawn to the gleaming saphire that dangled in the heart of the circular band of metal. Perhaps if she had heard him before the tentative call broke through the door, her face might have been softer, less hateful and full of vehemence for whoever had come to disturb her; her brows were close knit, delicate lips a severe, snarling line, ears tilted back to display her annoyance as her features broke through the gap in the thick, emerald moss that cloaked the opening to the cave. "Can you idiots not see that-" she quipped, her words dying as she met the rather concerned eyes of one whom she was slowly beginning to consider a friend.
He would make a grand total of two friends she had made in her nine years of life; she supposed that it was still manageable enough a number.
"Ruka!" she plunged right on ahead, her features and tone changing quickly at the realization that it was the deep chestnut stallion rather than one of the many others who resided upon the mountain, the rather polar swap of her emotions not entirely offhand for the mare. She did suppose, however, that she had lost a good amount of blood on the way back here, a thought that hadn't crossed her mind despite how every step seemed to be through chilled pine sap. The borders that composed the sight of Ruka were even slightly blurred, as if she was dreaming him. A sudden urge to glance down overwhelmed her, reaffirming the presence of her new trinket about her neck, it's solid shape chasing away the fear that she was perhaps passed out upon the floor of the cave, hallucinating.
She stepped out into the moonlight, her back crying out again as the moss swept across the gashes that marred her golden laced top line, every step more difficult than it had been now that she had finally given her weary muscles some pause. "Forgive my rudeness," she said softly, turning her frame to better face the man with the braided lock, "it would seem I've had more than my fair share of dragons and pyre keepers on this night. It makes one rather... cross." A slender chuckle escaped her, a sigh of weariness uncharacteristically trailing after it's dying notes.
She was unaware that Ruka had partaken of neither fights until her words had stilled on the air and she noticed that her friend was either the most adept warrior she had ever encountered, as he bore no marks of war, or he simply hadn't gone. The jovial expression that had come across her face at the beginning of their encounter now fell from her features as quickly as it had come, her golden gaze narrowing as she double checked him for any marks but for old scars. None, she deduced, raising her crown indignantly and surveying him with a dark anger that she had not known she could feel towards him. He was not afraid of combat; it had been his barbed horn that had slain the beast upon the Steppe. The only reason he could provide that would have forgiven his laziness had already been devoured by her knowledge of his character, and so now... well, now she was just really pissed. "It would seem you've had a nice, leisurely evening taking a stroll about the lake, however. Were you cursed with blindness while the war parties gathered or did you get lost in the dark?"
