The irritation all but radiates off him, and from her safety a few paces away, she enjoys it. She’s keeping him on his toes, she thinks with a smile, making sure his heart is healthy. She’d not missed the way he leaned into her or the hunger she’d seen in his eyes, but she is not interested in sating it. Not now – possible not ever, but there is no way to see into the future. She does, however, always enjoy being wanted. Unless there’s no time for, and this is such a time; she has other things to do.

There is no visual melding in her shifting, no oddly blurred vision that is half former shape and half future. She simply IS one moment, and the next she has been turned to something's entirely different.

In this case, the change is fairly drastic. It's not incredible - at least she is still a mare - but there is nothing of Djinni's true self in the form she takes.

A white blanket spreads across her hindquarters, speckled here and there with black spots, as well as some in a shade of salmon that perfectly matches the pink of her mane and tail. The horns are gone, as are the wings and her various golden accessories. She is Raene now, a bulky percheron hybrid mare who has recently inherited a throne from her sister.

"This is Sylva," she answers as she look out into the darkness. She wishes no one to notice them, and so they don't, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

"I need you to run it for me. It's a quiet little place, full of families." And it is; there's a peaceful sense of contentment that seems almost trapped beneath the fiery canopy. It reminds Djinni of her childhood. "It shouldn't be too difficult." The statement means to taunt him, as though there truly is nothing in the world easier than running a kingdom.

There is nothing pleasant in Stillwater’s expression. Djinni returns his hard-eyed stare with one of her own, waiting as he processes her instruction.

When he denies her, there is no surprise on her larger black face, no scowl of frustration.

Djinni hadn’t thought he’d follow orders blindly; it was part of what made him so appealing. It’s not as though she is queen of Nerine, with the ability to banish him from his seaside cave. He’s sworn no oath to her – but then, she’s sworn no oaths herself, she does this for her own purposes, whatever they may be.

“Yes.” She replies to his firm denial, and though she wants to laugh, she does manage to keep a – mostly – straight expression. Djinni has not missed the snarl, and while she does find delight in keeping him off balance, she is not so foolish as to prod haphazardly.

“You’ll stay here. You’ll keep this place safe.” She repeats her demands, knowing that they are no small burden. They are a burden she does not want, after all; why not foist them off on another?

“If you try to return, I’ll just send you back.” That would be simple enough, but she also wouldn’t put it past him to enjoy keeping her busy returning him every time he wandered away. “Hmm,” she muses aloud, tilting her back head and resettling her salmon mane. “Best make sure you stay, actually.”

She steps closer, Raene’s figuring disappearing as she does so, leaving her a smaller and easier to maneuver. She stops when she is face to face with him, just close enough to reach out and touch his muzzle with hers. And she does reach out, but only to tap the end of one small hoof against his right foreleg. The soft jingle of her golden anklets is not unusual, but the thud of a heavier chain settling into place around Stillwater’s fetlock is entirely novel.

“There.” Says the grullo mare, taking a quick step back to admire her handiwork. “That will keep you here.”

She waits, half-expecting an explosion of epic proportions, but he seethes silently as she watches.

Djinni had wondered if he was the right choice for this task, mulled over the potential consequences if he weren't. In the end, she'd decided that the effort - the responsibility - it would take for her to stay here wasn't worth it. she simply didn't want to lead a kingdom at this time, and foisting it off on someone else was far more desirable. She's never had an interest in power, and that doesn't change with the weight of a crown on her head.

She is somewhat disappointed at the lack of fireworks, and she doesn't hide it. Let Stillwater experience the little things in life; Djinni has already gotten what she wants. With a small frown that she shakes away, Djinni tells him that the terms will last: “Not for too long.”

“Long enough to make sure that Nayl has friends.” That’s what she’d been asked to do after all – make friends. She’d coincidentally also impersonated the Queen’s sister well enough to inherit a king (probably not what Nayl had wanted), but the pied queen of the sea will just have to accept that as a casualty of diplomacy. Djinni never’s been entirely able to control fate.

“You can call me Raene.” She replies, knowing that perhaps the name won’t be in use for long. “But I'll tell them I'm Djinni.” A sparsely populated kingdom often tends to be full of less-than-sparse personalities, but Djinni is up for the challenge. “You don’t like the hair?” She asks, affecting a rather hurt expression that Stillwater will surely know is false. With a blink of an eye, the salmon pink becomes black: “More to your liking? ”

"I've always shown you who I am." She tells him, her expression clearing of any emotion slowly, almost as though she is struggling to process what he asks, and why he thinks he even has to.

She'd been helpless on the seashore for nearly six months, with nothing to her name but the mouse grey hide she was born into. She had naught but the wind in her black and white mane, and the sand clinging to her heavily striped legs. The sea had grown louder for a while - or perhaps the chatter of horses grew quieter - but eventually she had found it.

Tucked into the seashore, it remains

And so Djinni remains. She will stay along the grey-glass water and leave her footprints in the granite sand.

The large appaloosa mare disappears.

"Which would you prefer?" She retorts, settling into a body and face that seems to be precisely half Nayl and half Djinni. Not so blended in way that might be a child by natural means, but rather a pied mare with dark hair that in one instant seems to be both the Nerinian ironheart and the next the grey mage. Djinni remains that way for a moment, a challenge in her orange/black eyes for a hard while.

Then, and only then, does she change again, settling into the smoky grullo tobiano that had threatened him at their first meeting. Every thing is exactly the same, from the frosting in her mane to the minuscule golden earrings in her black tipped ears.

Everything is the same except her eyes, which instead of sea-glass green or black or molten golden or ice white as they often are, are soft and brown and gentle. Softer than the proverbial doe's eyes, Djinni's bright eyes are akin to a fawn's.

She has not forgotten his request: to show him affection for once. Now, in her true self, she stands before him.

"Why do you think I haven’t?" She asks him, taking a step forward with her head turned, until her cheek is but a hair away from pressing against his neck. Djinni has always been loose with her affection - a touch here, a hug there – her reluctance has been a recent change that she hadn't really even noticed. The question she asks is in equal parts meant for herself: Why hasn't she? Let him answer the question; surely that's better than finding her own answer.

Djinni is never afraid. There is no trap she cannot escape, no injury she cannot avoid, no danger she cannot outrun.

Of course, she can’t ever get away from herself, and so rather than admit to it – admit to weakness – she grows defiant.

“Try it.” Djinni taunts, her eyes flashing in challenge. She doesn’t give him a chance to accept, simply leans over and presses her head against his neck. She’s there for a single moment, long enough for her heart to beat but once, and then she’s gone.

“I don’t share.” She says from six feet away, her eyes returned to the glimmering green of their shared sea, the softness gone as quickly as it had come. She might have, a moment ago, a moment before he’d told her Nayl denies him just as she has. And she doesn’t share – but more importantly she does not settle for second best.

“I’m sure there’s some nice Sylvan mare who can show you a good time.” She adds, her voice deceptively helpful. Little does she know that Nayl has told him much the same: that he’s free to do what he wants, with whom he wants. The sentiment might be the same, but Nayl is probably less inclined to actually dispose of any of Stillwater’s potential paramours. No one will miss a backwater Sylvan mare. There is a rather convenient volcano in Tephra.

With hard eyes, she holds his gaze with hers for a moment longer, and then turns away as the appaloosa Raene, tossing the following words over her shoulder:

“I have diplomats to interview. Perhaps you could do something…fighting-y.”