Glaze & Lysismach

Lys's talkative side was showing grandly as she trotted in a steady gait from the lake to the prairie, passing from a densely forested area to one that gave way to gently rolling hills and shoulder-high grasses. "A week ago, we saw this huge animal over here, with these tiny little horns on his head. Glaze, what did you say it was?"

"A bison." The walk was starting to loosen up the mare's attitude, even if she still wasn't entirely prone to talking or doing anything more than answering questions. With time she'd open up more, but she had her reasons for being wary and slightly foul-tempered. Luckily for Liekos, Lysismach provided enough of a friendly personality to make up for her friend's coldness.

"Ah, right... a bison. But anyway - so Liekos, you say you're new to the Valley? Have you any friends, or are you alone here?" The younger mare had slowed to a stop, her eyes catching on a particularly tasty-looking patch of grass.

Liekos

Liekos looked over to Glaze, "I didn't mean to make you angry. I was only curious." It was his way of apologizing. He laughed a little at Lys. She really was quite funny. Talkative, sweet, innocent in her ways.

He found himself more attracted to Glaze though, even though she was the quieter of the two mares, and hadn't shown him much of herself. Liekos eyed the same patch that Lys had, he trotted over to it and began to eat. "This is good, better than dry grass, that's for sure."

Glaze & Lysismach

The mare didn't reply instantly, making it seems as though she'd let his apology go without any acknowledgment. A second or two later however, Glaze directed her chocolaty eyes at the male and conceded a little, "It wasn't your fault, you shouldn't be sorry." Again, she eyed him up in an intent way, while letting her thoughts of him roll through her head. He wasn't nearly as domineering and pushy as Zaquaim had been, and yet he wasn't the submissive pushover that Ultair was, either - Liekos fit nicely between those two extremes, and despite herself, Glaze was taking a liking to it. Not that she let her interest show much at all, "I was out of line in snapping at you."

Lysismach remained quiet to let the older mare speak, and was secretly tickled that Glaze had even given an apology back - that was a big step for the brooding, and often moody horse. When Glaze had finished speaking, the younger spoke up again, with a mouthful of grass shoots she had lipped up, "This is one of the best spots to graze! Although I'll tell you a secret..." Lys grinned a little and lowered her voice, "Sometimes my brother and I would sneak into the human's land, and eat their carrots. Those are delicious."

Liekos

Liekos felt a spark in his heart, Glaze had apologized back. He smiled at her. "Thank you, sweety." Liekos said quietly then gave her a kind of horse hug, his neck arching around hers and his head resting on her whithers.

He smiled then laughed at Lys's comment. "You were a rebel then huh?" He said in between breaths. His own experiances with humans had almost cost him an eye, which is where he got the scar.

Glaze & Lysismach

She had been tempted to respond with her instinctive 'don't get use to it' reply, but those words died on her tongue when he craned his neck over and offered her a hug. Glaze had laced an ear back in uncertainty before she embraced the gesture by nudging her head against his neck - she was warming up to Liekos faster than she anticipated. "I suppose we all have our days." That was her own way of shrugging off his appreciation, while at the same time acknowledging it and offering an excuse for why she was so cross with him earlier.

"And still am." Lys snickered back, which earned her a pointed glare from Glaze. "What about you? Have you ever done anything exciting like that?" Lysismach had noticed the scar, but she didn't stop to think where it might have come from, though her question might awaken unpleasant memories in the stallion.

Liekos

"I have, and I almost lost an eye." Liekos laughed hard at his memory. "When I was a yearling, some of my friends dared me to steal carrots and biscuts from a human. He was sleeping when I came up. The thing that held the carrots and stuff got stuck on my nose, so I flung it. The thing hit the human and he pulled out some flashing piece of hard rock. Next thing I know, I'm running for my life and bleeding from my eye." He looked amused by his own story. Liekos realized just how dumb he had been for doing that.

Liekos then began to groom Glaze absent-mindedly. Picking at some tangles in her mane as he would his own and grazing his teeth across her hide to pick out ticks and other parasites.

Glaze & Lysismach

It was Lysismach's turn to laugh now, filling the air with a round of chuckling at the recount of Lieko's story. With her ears perked forward in keen interest, the chatty little mare had a few more words to throw his way, "You sound brave! Polemos and I only went at night, when the humans sleep in their dens." She looked quizzically at the scar, now that he had mentioned the injury he'd gotten from the human, "Glaze, you told me about human weapons. What was the one with the rocks and thunder?"

"Thunder sticks." Glaze was calming down considerably, and without really thinking about it, she turned her teeth on Liekos as well to return the favor of grooming his own coat. "They use rocks and thunder to attack with, and that is precisely why you and your brother aren't to go near them again."

Liekos

Liekos laughed a bit, being feral he knew the weapons and tools humans used, "They are called guns, loves." He said chuckling as his teeth picked out a burr from Glaze's coat. Liekos pulled it out as gently as possible. "Other tools they use, the ones that cut deep, are called knives or axes. The axes are used on trees which they call 'firewood' and the knives they use to..." He paused, wondering if he should tell them of fire and their consumption of other animals.

Humans once you actually thought about it, were defenseless as long as they had no weapons. They had no claws, no sharp teeth, they couldn't run that fast, and they had flimsy skin that tore easily. He turned his mind back to getting burrs and other debris out of Glaze's rump. Liekos didn't want to mess with her tail, just in case she was a kicker. He had been around enough teil-sour mares to know better, some of them just didn't like their tassles messed with. "You have alot of grass and burrs in your tassle, Glaze." He said it sensitively, not wanting to offend her.

Glaze & Lysismach

There was probably little surprise in the way that Lysismach was listening with great interest to the male, fascinated enough by Lieko's information that she forgot all about grazing and stood with her pale ears swiveled intently forward to catch every word. Glaze had one ear turned back to him, with the other angled towards Lys, and wasn't paying as much attention to the talk of humans that her younger counterpart was. Instead, she answered the stallion's latter comment lightly, "If I had better help with grooming, that wouldn't be the case." And when she said this, a pointed look was turned against Lysismach, who grinned cheekily and quickly dropped her head down to graze. The younger mare was more interested in exploring and talking than she was grooming.

"They call them guns? I've never seen one before, but Glaze has. She use to live with the humans." After muching through a mouthful of tender blades, Lys was talking again, thoroughly interested in the humans, "What do they do with the knives, Liekos?"

Liekos

"You want me to groom it for you?" Liekos asked Glaze politely. He was in the middle of her spine now, taking out small burrs and pieces of mud. It was always an absent minded thing for him to do, as was evident in his own coat. Lys's soft voice reached his ears and he was uncertain suddenly.

"Um...knives are for cutting, like a hawk's claw or a wolf's tooth." He used predators to imply that humans ate meat. It was upsetting to talk about for him. Though, he chuckled lightly when Glaze had cast a glare to Lys.

Glaze & Lysismach

The mare was putting more effort into Liekos' coat now, nibbling away at this bit of debris and that, and starting to enjoying their mutual grooming. It was also helping to take more of the edge from her attitude, and getting the mare to lightened up a little. "I'd like that, thank you." She wouldn't admit such things to Liekos, not when she didn't know him all that well, but the older mare had once lived in the hands of the humans. But her time with them had been pleasant enough, if not rather dull for her - in any case, she remained mostly mum on the discussion, while Lysismach continued to pester the two with questions.

"Oh? They use those because their claws are so short, is that why?" The younger mare didn't seem to notice the way that Liekos had become uncertain about this topic, or how it was upsetting for him, or she would have stopped asking. Instead, she went blissfully on, "And they have very little fur - I think that's why they wear those different colored skins on them."

Liekos

Liekos obliged Glaze and slowly began to groom her tail, being careful and prescise. His teeth caught on tangles a couple of times, but he pulled them out along with a few brambles. Lys kept asking questions, though.

"Yes, there claws are way too short and fragile to do any harm. And they wear the skins, called clothes, to keep warm and hide the fact that they are almost completely furless. They only have manes." He laughed at the thought of a human with fur and a tail. It was hilarious to him.

Just then, Glaze hit a ticklish spot on him, and he jumped slightly. Laughing he let her know what had happened, "I'm ticklish."

Glaze & Lysismach

The mare was working idly over his dark coat, listening to the back and forth conversation between he and Lys when the stallion suddenly jumped. Glaze drew her head back immediately, her eyes a bit wide in surprise as she frantically thought for a moment that she might have accidentally bit him, or maybe that he was responding to some sort of danger he'd spotted. When he explained the flinch away as nothing more than his response to being ticklish, even Glaze had to chuckle and shake her head, "You scared me there, for a minute."

"Their manes are pretty funny looking." Lysismach giggled allowed, acting more like a filly than the young mare she was right now, "One time, I saw a human with a pink mane! But Glaze doesn't believe me." And Glaze didn't - she'd didn't know that humans had such things as 'hair dye', and pink was only a color she'd ever seen in flowers, and the strange clothing that the two-leggers wore. It simply wasn't a hue found in hair.

Liekos

Liekos laughed a bit as Glaze told him that his reaction had scared her. "I'm sorry sweeting, I didn't mean to." He nickered softly to reassure her that all was good in the world.

"There are things out there that can dye manes pink, green, even blue. It's called...well, dye. There was a human I saw once with whitish hair then the next day she had black. The only way I could identify her was by her scent, I think that may be why they do it, to hide from other humans." He laughed a bit at the absurdity of it.

Glaze & Lysismach

The alarm waned from her eyes, and her tense postured eased up in response to his nickering of all's well. "I'll remember to be more careful next time." Glaze stated with a returned nicker, sharing the mutual feeling that things were alright once more, before she went back to grooming him.

"Dye? That's very strange... and maybe you're right. Glaze told me that humans can't smell very well. They do have tiny snouts after all, so I guess it makes sense." Lysismach had stopped grazing in order to ponder this idea, "Come to think of it, they've got tiny ears too, and they don't move at all. Maybe that's why they can't understand us, because they can't hear us well enough?"

Liekos

Liekos gave a hearty laugh to Lysi's words. "They don't speak in our language anymore, that ended when they ate something they shouldn't have. So hearing us is like us hearing the wind blow or the leaves rustle. We can hear it, we just don't understand the words that are spoken." He gave a small swish to his tail, shooing a fly from Glaze's face. Her tail was now tangle free, so he went to work on her mane in the same fashion.