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It wasn't often that Sitareh was left to her own devices in her native land, charged with nothing immediate to do and only a sleepy forest to talk to. Her brother had trotted off to engage in his so-called knight training, and her parents had sequestered themselves for the time being, their voices wispy and their eyes soft and steady on each other. Adrift, the filly made her way down the familiar trails, humming a little under her breath and peering up into the canopy. She had spied a strange bird a few days before, feathers drifting down in a train of iridescent blues and oranges. It had been skittish in her presence, and then spooked entirely when her polite greeting caught up to it, its luxurious tail barely weighing it down as it fled. That had been the last she'd seen of it, though she had caught snatches of the exotic creature in her periphery once or twice. It had been nearly the same size as a hummerbird, and its song had trilled sweet like rain, but no amount of description to her father would have him put a name to it. Sita hardly expected to find the creature, of course, reconciled to idling away her time with more grounded things, but it was nice to at least try.

Still, an impromptu expedition could only hold her for so long, particularly without Hallon at her side providing a constant slew of questions. Fortunately for the filly, a storm that had raged the previous night had also seen fit to leave behind puddles that the sun could not reach. Having given up on finding someone to play with, Sita gleefully charged through them, skidding and sliding along the terrain. The slap of her three-toed hooves in the few inches of water provided an intermittent distraction as she leapt from one pocket to another, increasing her distance each time. It wasn't until she hit a slightly deeper depression that she slipped, a yip of surprise snatched from her mouth as her leg folded underneath her. After a few breathless seconds of wallowing, the half-kirin realized that she was unhurt, if left a little dirtier than her mother would have strictly approved of. But Sita bore the mess with a giggle and a perfunctory swipe at her muddied face, nodding to the sludge in gratitude for having broken her fall.

A sucking sound up ahead caught her attention, ears perking in an effort to catch its origin. When no further noises followed, she blinked away the stinging muck and forced herself to her feet once more, careless of the damp trail she left in her wake when she walked. Whatever she had expected to find on the other side of that sound, it hadn't been a boy playing at being a statue, carroty hair disheveled and his bright stare rimmed by terrified white. Sita paused a fair distance away, head canting curiously at his posture. Her lengthening forelock had been artfully smeared back from her eyes, but the rest of her mane was a tangled, slowly solidifying mess of caked brown. "Are you playin' a game?" she asked amiably, looking toward where he had extended one leg. It was then that she noticed the same filth which coated her body in thick, runny layers seemed to be anchoring his foot as well. Her expression lapsed into something more concerned, though the mud obscured much of her face. "Or are ya stuck?"

At the other foal's unresponsive whimpering, Sitareh ventured closer, peering down with a keen eye for dirty details. The consistency of his mud was perhaps a little thicker than one normally ran across, the patchy state of the canopy above allowing tongues of sunlight through to lap up the excess moisture. Still, it didn't look particularly dangerous, at least not in any way that she could discern. Inhaling deeply, she caught the normal smells associated with the terrain: earth, stagnant water, the peppery undertones of some nearby vegetation. Beneath that was something foreign, sour and damp, emanating from the boy in front of her.

Sita's chin jerked upward in surprise when he finally spoke to her directly, the gesture sending a fine spray of mud in all directions. He was trying to ward her off, it seemed, even as he stumbled into another sentence, his voice full of heavy, trembling pauses. If he was stuck, though, wouldn’t he want someone to help him? A quick glance around confirmed that they were the only two present in this stretch of forest, not even her father’s shadow lingering in the corners of her vision. She turned back just in time to watch him sink a second hoof into the brown depths, the indignant noise that came out of his throat earning a grin. "Well, that's not gonna help you get out," she informed him brightly, sidling around the deep puddle and huddling up nearer to his side while he was otherwise engaged. The arch of his wings distracted her momentarily, black with muted purples skimming inadvertently close to her cheek. They were nothing at all like Honeydew's set, she noticed, the flimsy, translucent under-plumage that he bore entirely absent. This foal's wings looked fastidiously groomed, though, not a feather out of place that she could see.

When he stopped struggling long enough to fling an accusation her way, Sitareh's nose scrunched up in open confusion, the individual scales that rested on her snout sliding over each other. "Why would I laugh at you?" she asked, canting her head so that the muck dribbled off one of her ears. "S'no fun to be stuck," she added, a tinge sympathetic to his plight, despite the fact that he clearly did not appreciate having an audience. "I can help you, if you want."

Without waiting for his response, Sitareh slid into the sizeable pit, unbothered when it swelled up to engulf most of her legs and flirted against her underbelly. She was already covered in the stuff, after all; there was no sense in being upset with a fresh coat. It took her a few moments to shift around and face him, the mud tugging against her movements like a live entity, tail stirring the brown sludge around in slow-motion. "I'll push and you pull, 'kay?" she instructed, giving him a second or two to digest that information before she carefully stretched out her neck, planting the flat of her face uninvited against the foal's chest. The tiny nub of her forehorn was doubtlessly digging into his skin a little, but not enough to puncture, and hopefully not enough to hurt. "Ready?"

The lithe, banded muscles in his chest flexed against her armored snout, and she felt the wind of his wings beating frantically at the air, trying to give him the extra lift to escape. Sita's neck strained as she shoved in response, legs pushing against the mud's static current while she contended with the angle. Her toes dug into the earth, deep and stabilizing once they found purchase. She sank another few inches as a result, breath stuttering out in surprise when the slimy coldness rose to chest-level. It didn't take long before she felt something give, and the filly had to jerk back suddenly to avoid toppling face first into the pit, her tail sweeping around like a rudder to maintain her balance.

Once she had recovered her previous position, Sitareh was pleased to note the boy was free, if sprawled on the ground and kicking out in a way that reminded her of an overturned beetle attempting to right itself. A barrage of noise was also escaping from his open mouth, something like disjointed words with no real pause between them. Her ears swiveled, and she was delighted to find that it was a language in which she was more or less fluent. "Not hurt, though, right?" she inquired, making her laborious way back to the edge where she had slid down. It took significantly longer to pull herself out than it had to get in, but that was to be expected, and she backslid more than once in the effort. By the time she emerged, the caked state of her tufted tail made it necessary to drag it along behind her, twice as heavy as normal and not worth holding aloft. Meanwhile, the muddied casing on her neck and spine had begun to crack as it dried, and her scales glinted faintly through the mess, green-gold and no worse for the wear.

The colt was still doing some strange dance on solid ground, and she watched him with interest, wondering if she might be asked to join in at some point. Best to study the steps on the off chance such a thing happened, though there didn't seem to be any real pattern that she could follow. Her brows furrowed a second later at his declared animosity, a little well of discomfort working its way through her on the forest's behalf. "How come? The forest didn't do nothin'." She shot a glance back across her flank, noting the innocuous pit that they had both so recently taken a dip in. "And mud isn't gonna hurt ya, neither. S'just dirt and water, maybe some plants n' twigs n' stuff." None of which was stupid or worth hating, at least not as far as she was concerned. But the colt was still obviously distressed despite his recent rescue, everything in his posture radiating tension and genuine unhappiness. Sitareh puzzled over that for a few seconds, a rare frown crossing her lips as she considered the possibilities. Maybe his mother would also be upset at the state of him? He wasn't really all that dirty, especially in comparison to her, but sometimes she was surprised by other mothers' standards.

With that in mind, Sita reached out and delicately clipped a clinging leaf from his brow with her teeth, hesitating for a second before she leaned down and tongued it out of her mouth. She nudged it with her nose back into what looked like its proper place, ignoring the smear of fresh muck she left behind as a result. There, that was better. He was still muddy, though, and since that seemed to form the backbone of the issue, it needed to be addressed. "Wanna go down to the river?" she offered brightly, shaking out her hind legs to a small avalanche of dirt clods and wet earth. "S'not far, and you can wash off in it."