He does not seem the kind to smile easily, and Djinni is not off put by his cool demeanor. If anything, she is intrigued by the way the cold spirals off his skin like steam off a sulfuric lake. He is cold like Brennen is sometimes cold, and she wonders if the two dark-haired men have ever had a chance to meet. Perhaps they will someday, she thinks; it will be more probably than not if she succeeds today.

“Sylva is well,” she tells him truthfully, her gaze flicking to the melding of her fiery canopy and his firs overhead. It is quiet, as it always is, and that is what has brought her here. The grey mare lacks the drive of her own monarch, but she is equally (and perhaps even more) cunning. More importantly, she has begun to realize the importance of a homeland. She had mocked the amazons for it only a few years ago, and now she thinks of the fire forest even when dozens of miles away. The Sylva forest has cemented a place in Djinni’s heart, and now she wants to be sure that it will be cemented in Beqanna.

Whole lands had been stripped away in the Reckoning, and she is not ready to let that happen again. If she has to take measures (take responsibility) that she’d usually avoid…then so be it. She will take the measures.

“I came for both of our woods,” she tells the spotted stallion, “To see if you would want to join me in making sure they stay safe.”

Diplomacy has never been something she is interested in, but she’s always been good at it. Mastery of the political was one of the tools considered indispensible by the monarchies of old; a silver tongue, a warrior’s skill, geographic knowledge, and a complete historical understanding of Beqanna since its inception – that was what she knew. Or had known, really, since Djinni has not brushed up on history in decades and the Beqanna she stands on is far different than the ones of her youth.

She has never really understood the importance of those skills before (most likely because she has never understood the appeal of a kingdom life) but as she stands beside the spotted stallion, she beings to understand.

Or at least, she thinks she does.

“A union,” she replies.

“Not an alliance – something more.” The phrasing is more difficult than she’d anticipated, but there is no need to amplify the candor in her eyes. She is honest and forthright, and has to trust that he will take her at her word. “Our woods are already connected,” says the grullo mare as she gestures overhead at the blended canopy. “I propose a single kingdom, with both Sylva and the Taiga continuing just as they have until now. But we will count our people as one in times of need, and consider each other equals.”

Djinni is fairly certain that such a thing hasn’t been proposed before, not here in the New Beqanna or before the Reckoning in the Old. Alliances are standard, subkingdoms not unheard of – but merging two lands into one? They will be geographically larger than the rest, expanding the territory of his pack to roam (if they so choose) without also hindering the freedom of her own people. It seems ideal – at least to Djinni – but she knows that the decision is equally Ruan’s, and so she waits.

He asks if they aren’t already equals and she grins in return. She knows she’d not been entire open about her identity on her first trip here, but she also hadn’t ever lied – or even hidden the truth. She comfortable with that (she’d have been equally comfortable even if she had twisted the truth), and doesn’t seem at all put off by what she interprets as his reluctance to wholeheartedly accept her proposal.

Well, she supposes, getting rid of responsibility seems to be more difficult than she’d anticipated.

Still, this could all be good for Sylva, and watching over the forest had been what she’d promised to do. So rather than disappear into the mountains as she frequently contemplates, she stays. Ruan speaks of great change in Taiga, but murmurs of what that change might be has not yet reached the rest of Beqanna. Not a change in leadership, she assumes, because Ruan still speaks as though he leads the Taiga just as he had the last time they’d spoken.

“Please do,” she says when he asks if she has offered them a chance to visit Sylva. “Bring whomever you’d like.”

As he pauses, Djinni does as well. Her pale gaze flickers over the forest and she feels a dull ache in her udder, a reminder that she needs to find her son. He is nearly old enough to leave her side (which he does, frequently, but not yet forever), and sometime in the months since his birth her desire to keep Sylva safe has become a need to protect it for his sake, to hold a sanctuary from the dangers of the outside world. She’s not yet conscious of that, of course, and when Ruan asks for suggestions she does not linger on her family.

“Perhaps not Pangea,” she says with a wry grin, “Unless you’d like to meet the self-proclaimed ‘big bads’ of Beqanna”. Knowing the enemy is good, she knows, but they’ve also yet to try anything especially bad. “Sylva is allied with Nerine – the new amazons – and we have good relations with Tephra. Beyond that, Sylva tends to stay within its borders.”