Welcome to Gaia! ::

Dia didn't often wander so far away from the teepee, but today she'd been possessed by an urge to go exploring. Looking for decent grazing land she would have said to anyone who happened to ask. Mostly, she was following her nose onto parcels of land that she hadn't yet really explored.

But it was important to know the surroundings, she told herself. Just in case. She wasn't sure what a just in case might be, but felt certain she would know it if it happened and be glad that she'd scouted out all possibilities.

So it was that she was tromping around an unfamiliar clearing. "Good grass," she said aloud. "No snake holes or burrows. Not too many trees, not wide open. I like it.

Dia rounded a tree and spotted the stallion. And the bunny. The bunny she could ignore. The stallion she watched a little more warily. After all, if he had a herd nearby, he might be territorial.

As it was, though, he seemed quite content to watch the rabbit. Dia waited a few moments, to see if he might spot her. When he didn't look up, she cleared her throat and called out, "I'm just going to look around. I won't disturb you."

And then, well. She started looking.

Beautiful mare, was it? Dia lifted an eyebrow and tipped her ears toward him, but it was skeptical, not pure curiosity. Stallions talked sweet when they wanted something, usually. She managed not to snort, though. She was being restrained.

"I came out to have a look around someplace I don't know as well as the land around home. Just in case," she informed him. "Dia de la Esperanza. Dia's easier to say." Then she paused. "Is your name really Soup?"

As if she needed someone to take care of her. "I think I can manage on my own for a walk," she told him. "If I were going to go farther away, I'd have company, of course, but I'm not that far away.

Queen. Was she a queen? "No one's called me a queen before," she confessed. She rather liked it.

As for his name: "It's not a terrible name. At least they didn't call you Meat." She meant that as a little joke. She smiled a bit.

First queen, now a crown. Was she holding her head up a little more proudly? Yes, yes, she just might be. She certainly looked a little more pleased. "I will have a herd, one day," she said. "I suppose it'll be enough to lead them, but a bit of land wouldn't be a bad thing. As long as there was good pasture. And clean water." She loved water. That was vital.

"No, no." She shook her head. "I meant that it would have been worse if your name was Meat. Rather than Soup." Ears pricked forward, she waited to see if he understood her now.

Then she relaxed a bit. Looked back the way she'd come, then at him again. "I could stay a little while longer, I suppose." It wasn't as though the others needed her just then and it was nice having someone new to talk to. "What should we do?"

Dia snorted and flicked an ear dismissively. Dreaming? Dreaming nothing. "Dreaming won't bring me a herd. Or a stallion, for that matter. That takes work, both of them." She took a breath, about to explain how she hadn't met a stallion yet who suited her, but even she knew that was a little rude. So she paused and amended her thoughts, then said, "I just have to keep looking."

A king to her queen. She really was liking that analogy. She deserved to be thought a queen. After all, she'd be important in her herd. "If I find a king, I might be convinced." She could allow that much. Maybe.

"You want to see it snow at the waterfall?" It didn't make much sense to her, but maybe he had a good reason. And she hadn't been there often, herself. Then again, maybe he was just excited. He was certainly enthusiastic, she thought, as she watched him jump. "Does it usually snow there?"

That was better. The apology mollified. She might be acting a little roughly with him, but she wanted it clear that she was not the sort to dream her way to happy endings. Anything worth having was worth the effort and work to get it, she thought. So an ear twitched and she snorted again, a little softer, half amused. "Love at first meet? No such thing."

"I've never seen the water turn to ice," she confessed though. "More, I go to sleep one night and in the morning, there's ice over my drinking spot." Which didn't much please her. "I like water when it's flowing more than when it's not, but it can be pretty," she allowed. Yes, she could recognize pretty things, no matter her mood.

All right. Now she felt a little bad. Stallions being scolded were fairly sad creatures, and he wasn't stupid or rude. Just very optimistic. So, she stretched her neck a bit and nickered. "They may not be lying," she allowed. "They might believe in love at first meeting. You might, even. You're allowed to believe what you like. I don't," she clarified. "That doesn't mean you have to stop."

She bobbed her head, then. "The place I like to go to drink most often gets covered sometimes. I can break through it with a few good taps with a hoof, but it does get frustrating." She shook out her mane. "It sparkles, I'll say that for ice."