Like a mantis, Hemlock stands, and the two strangers regard each other amidst their banter, sizing each other up, thinking of words to say. Meaningless conversation, really. What could possibly come of this? What future could these two nightshade apparitions have with each other, besides the stallion taunting the mare, and the mare too dull to understand it? Things Hemlock should be considering, but isn't.

Humor. That's another one of those things she doesn't quite grasp.

Head lifting slightly, the mare's ears tilt back, and she stares at him in the epitome of deadpan, delicate nostrils bowing as she lets out a long-suffering breath.

And then that word comes, 'lacking', and Hemlock understands that she is missing something in the eyes of this stranger, but she has no idea what 'character' means. Head rearing back even more, she tensed, breath leaving her a little more forcefully as her sleek sides contracted over ribs, belly heaving upward in what became a snort. That Hemlock was lacking disturbed her, though she may not know just what she lacked. The brainless do not know they lack brains.

The sound of heavy steps reached her ears, and she suddenly felt at quite a disadvantage standing in the creek, so she bunched, and hopped, long legs carrying her easily over the shallow bank to dry land. The thin, black tail twitched upward against her flanks as Hemlock watched the large mare stop and address the stallion, and at the mood changes instantly. She came to understand that she had been mocked -- though whether to believe the words of a new stranger, vs. one she had spoken to for five minutes, she didn't know --, and flattened her ears against her neck, and the black stallion received a poisonous glare for his efforts.

She wasn't a spoil-sport, however, and her irritation soon passed in favor of curiosity.

Scraped knee beginning to sting now, she stepped forward and regarded the grey newcomer. A few moments later, and she was thoroughly cowed from making any sort of comment about this poor creature's appearance, as she might have, had the mare been any smaller, and less capable of thrusting that horn between her ribs. Her self-preservation instincts were what had kept Hemlock alive this long, and nothing else.

She interrupted whatever conversation might have been about to occur between the two:

"Hemlock. Who are you? And who," here, she turned her head to give a sour look at the stallion, "are you?" No need to drag out introductions; if every unsightly critter in the place was going to somehow find her this evening, she might as well know their names.


let me be your ruler
you can call me queen bee