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It is unseasonably warm; a drizzle and a clear sun warring for dominance. Already she had lost count of the times no-see-um sized dots had plopped on her nose or misted her back or collected in her hair. Nor did she know how often the sun had dried them. Indeed a vein of droplets crowned her hair even then.

In Threes traipsed through the swamp, the muddy ground slick under her hooves, in her odd gait. It clearly simulated a three note beat. One. Two. Three. Over and over again. Not that she paid it any mind -- she knew she was odd, she got it from her father -- as she tilted her chin up, eyes searching the trees. She had not quite decided what she was after, only that she did not yet want to complete her three naps with the third yet.

The trill of songbird caught her attention just as her foreleg squelched into a deep hole of mud. She stumbled and caught her balance, frowning. Far from thinking about how she could get out of such a mess, her mind was fretting -- if one leg was mud covered so far up did that mean two others needed to be as well, or were three only slightly mud splattered legs enough? Twitch. Ears and tail quivered.

She had no idea what in the swamp was going on; a blur of red and green, a sharp prod against her leg and then one more against her chest was the extent of her awareness. And then it was gone and she was -- well her leg was less stuck -- suffering the ache of a...

A side horn. She raised a brow at the buck as he pranced back to her, unsure of what she thought of him. She wrinkled her nose and muttered "I wasn't trying to own it..." With a quick movement back she found her foreleg came free of the mud and she frowned at it, three three three, unsure of what to do. "You're incredibly out of sync, you know," she added as she took him in. Ones and fours and not a three at all. It would have driven her mad.

She had no idea what was going on in that head of his; none whatsoever. Then again as her eyes darted to the foreleg caked in mud -- twitch -- and the aches caused by his horn, she wasn't sure she would have wanted to.

He did have pretty nice coloring, she found herself thinking, as he gave a toss of his head. It didn't stop her from sputtering, "S-services? What are you?" She dearly hoped he wasn't proposing what she thought he was.

The unwavering intent of his gaze -- why was he moving closer? "Will you watch where you point that thing?" she bellowed. Only it came out more of a shriek as she stepped back, magically finding another hole of mud that her left back leg sunk into. Two.

The widening of her eyes was sudden and her entire body seemed to quake as she tried to determine what to do. He was in the way of the other bit of mud. And two. She began to mutter and then, in her constant shuffling, her right back leg slid on the muddied ground sending her into an awkward sitting position. Oh. A sigh of relief and then a raise of her chin, "What do you want?" As if she wasn't covered three-fourths in mud and nothing odd had happened.

The last thing she expected was him to plop down in the mud with her. Especially after looking so beseechingly at the sky. It would not have surprised her then if he had left. And then he was -- her eyes narrowed, shrewd. "What makes you ask that?" It wasn't exactly a friendly tone, but it wasn't hostile either. There was however a note of suspicion lurking in it.

She wasn't magical, she knew, but his question made her... Who was it that had liked to call her obsessive neurotic fixation a magical mishap? Oh what did it matter. And why ever did he only have one horn, so far from three, unless she counted her own. Ooh, her eyes lit. "Clumsy as you are, you might not be a complete lost cause," she decided.

He was a nutter, wasn't he? Not that she was sane, according to most. She scoffed twice and then a third as obsession demanded. It almost sounded like she was choking or coughing. "You're a strange little boy, do you know that?" apparently she liked to ask questions. And then, "Full of yourself, too."

A shake of her head, however, signaled that no, they wouldn't be doing this -- whatever this was -- in the mud. "And for your information I am not a stick or boring." She pulled herself up and out of the mud, one lone leg (mostly) clean. Then began to trot away, gait once more counting up to three before repeating, as if she intended to leave him there.

"Are you coming?" her neck twisted and she leveled a glance at him.

She didn't see all of his (failed) attempts to mimic her gait. She did see him stumble face first into a tree. A dry chuckle escaped her at that. And she turned forward, not at all sure where she was going or what she'd do when she got there. Really, she only wanted to leave the mud so that he would not call her a stick again -- joke though it may have been.

"What took you so long?" was the first thing out of her mouth when he caught up.

"I'll be back in a few," he said. And she didn't know why she waited. But wait she did. The tip of her hoof dug into the ground, one two three pause, until she had a row of three lines for no other reason than she did. And then he was back.

Although her eyes rolled at his mention of magic -- bloody obsessed, he was (and she would know) -- she complimented him when he emerged with a rabbit, "You do have use." Eyes wandered until they settled on the hind feet and she snorted, "I bet you want the feet. Luck and magic and all that." She didn't mention that a dead rabbit did not seem lucky to her. Nor that she thought live rabbits were the kind the magical might play tricks with. Not that she cared; rabbits were good for eating. Besides she wanted a trio of something else for pets.

"Do you have any pets?" she asked as she stepped forward and sunk her teeth into a chunk of the rabbit.