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Ara eyed the stallion with a bit of suspicion at the somewhat random offer. She had been focused on her art earlier, but not completely oblivious to his hostility when they had first bumped into each other. Still, she could use the help, and some were just worse at first impressions than others.

"Alright then. If you want to help I wont say no, so here's what I need..." she proceeded to explain her plan in more detail.

It was a fairly simple undertaking, truth be told. The idea for this had struck her a few days ago and this was going to be her first attempt at it. The white rocks were going to be used as the 'background' as well as a border, and all the other colors were going to go into a huge spiral. Simple, but it would be pretty, she hoped.

Before she could get any further though, "...before any of that though, we need to go back and get the rest of my rocks. I have another satchel if you want to help carry, or you can just keep following me around I guess."

It was clear by the dry tone to her voice which option she would prefer.

Ara looked again at the stallion she had just met. Perhaps she had misjudged him when they had first met. This was certainly much nicer than he had acted at first. Not giving it much more thought, because really there were a lot of rocks to move still, she helped him put the satchel on.

"Okay, with both of us it should only be a couple more trips. I might have made a few too many rocks..." she muttered the last to herself.

Silk had since moved under her hat, sick of the jostling he was getting with every rock placed in the satchel.

Once both satchels were loaded up again, there were very few rocks left in the area.

Ara nodded in satisfaction, looking around the clearing and noting that it was much easier to move things efficiently when someone was around to lend a hand. Glancing at Zach out of the corner of her eye, she smiled a little bit. The stallion had initially come off as a bit of a jerk, but was turning out to be okay.

Looking around her 'work' clearing, she made sure they had all of her painstakingly painted rocks. Satisfied that none were hiding in the taller grass or in a random gopher hole, she prepared to head out again.

"Yea, I'm ready. Thanks for your help, this is going much faster than I thought it would!" she exclaimed happily.

It was when she was picking up her satchel that her plans for the day were derailed. In the process of settling it around her shoulders, she suddenly felt it growing lighter and could hear the sound of rocks hitting the ground and bouncing off of each other. Looking at the bag she saw a rip in the one side and it wasn't hard to guess how it had gotten there. It was too clean of a cut for it to have caught on a branch. A little voice told her that it could have been an accident, but she wasn't that naive. The stallion had been outright hostile at the beginning of their encounter and his about face should have made her more suspicious. Self recrimination could wait, however, Silk was nosing out from under the hat and whispering to her.

"I ssaw him cut it..." he said, his head barely poking out from under her hat and sealing her suspicions.

Ara would ask him later why he hadn't said anything sooner, but now her angry eyes swept over to Zach and she glared.

Ara was stunned, and all she could do while Zach made his escape was stare into the spot he had just occupied. Silk nudged her ear and she blinked away her shock. With a growl that could have come from a Kalona, she shrugged out of her now ruined satchel and gave chase.

"GET BACK HERE YOU b*****d!!!" she shouted after the fleeing stallion. Silk was coiling himself into her hair, and a part of Ara felt bad knowing that the snake hated flying. The rest of her was seeing red and was totally ready to throttle the stallion she KNEW she shouldn't have trusted.

"I'LL CATCH YOU EVENTUALLY! BRING BACK MY ROCKS!!" she pumped her wings as fast as she could, trying futilely to catch up. When she got her hooves on him...well, he'd better hope she never caught him, that was for sure!

Silk was curling around her ears and under her chin, squeezing a little tighter as the chase went on in his fear. At one point her hat flew off too but she didn't care. It wasn't even the rocks at this point that had her chasing the stallion, it was that he had deceived her and she wanted to take something and chuck it at his head...possibly that bag of rocks if she ever caught up to him.

The thought of beating him with a bag full of rocks was indeed appealing, but just as she was catching up to him he somehow started going faster and putting distance between them again.

With a curse, she tried to force herself to fly faster, but could feel the burn in her shoulder and wings. She didn't think she'd ever tried to fly this fast for longer than a couple of moments; she just didn't have the endurance to keep up this chase.

"You may get away this time...but I'll find you! Just you WAIT!" she screamed after him.

Ara watched as the thief disappeared into the sky as she finally admitted that she would not be able to catch him...this time. As he flew away, she tried to at least note which way he was going in case she decided to try to find him again later. As it was, even if she did catch him now she was in no state to fight. Her sides were streaked with sweat and her breathing was coming in great gasps, her chest felt like it was on fire.

The short but intense chase had sapped all of her energy, and when she landed she collapsed to her knees.

"Damn - him - ..." she panted, rising stubbornly to her feet and glaring at the sky.

'Isss it over?' Silk whispered feebly, dangling from her neck.

"Yes...for now..." she muttered darkly, slowly gaining her breath back.

'Jusst asss long asss I don't have to come along next time...' he grumbled.

With a sigh she turned and began walking back the way she had flown. The way her muscles were twitching, there would be no more flying today. She could still try to find her hat though. It was a gift from her father, and she didn't want to disappoint him.

--------

Much later, after resting and regaining her flying capabilities, she returned to her clearing. Silk was once again curled up under her hat, woven through her hair and napping. The clearing with the stones was silent, save for a couple of birds flitting around the trees. Ara glowered at the stones, completely disgusted by the sight of them and the association they now carried. She nonetheless began assembling them in the whorl of white, black, red, and gold that she had originally intended. It was smaller, but Zach hadn't flown off with enough stones to send her back to painting.

When it was done she actually still had a few stones left over, and one in particular drew her eye. The only white stone left seemed to be mocking her with its presence. She wanted to throw it at his smug face, since it was all she could think of when she looked at her stone mural.

Instead of throwing it at a tree she picked it up and put it in her new satchel. She would save it, and the next time she saw Zach she would try to break his face with it.