Lepis prides herself on having seen a great many things, but a mare walking around with a spear through her chest is certainly something new. The mare herself is a stranger, with lovely coloration that somehow makes the protrusion all the more disturbing. She looks disturbed as well, though Lepis is not sure if that is a result of the spear or where she stands: just at the border of the land. The stranger appears to know this is the edge of Loess, and Lepis brushes past a stand of monstera and prickly pear to better face the unfamiliar pegasus.

"Hello," she says hesitantly, her blue-grey eyes flicking down to the spear and back up again. There are protocols for greeting a stranger at the border, but none of them included anything quite like this, and Lepis is left feeling rather out of her depth. It is not a comfortable feeling.

"Is that…" she begins, but then trails off. "Are you…" Again, another glance down at the spear. Then she gives a small shake of her head, supresses the concern, and starts for the third and final time. "Welcome to Loess. Can I help you?"

@[Sabra]

Were it not for the spear, Lepis likely would have been offended. (The rudeness of her own awkward greeting having been immediately forgotten, of course).

But she knows what it is like to be injured, to be broken in a way not easily healed, and it tempers the hot retort that rises to her tongue. Though her own wing has long since healed, there are still winter mornings when the myriad old fractures ache in the cold.

Instead, she narrows her cool grey eyes only slightly, ears flicked forward as the other begins to speak. Lepis does not react to the name the other gives, but she knows it. Sabra. Yes, the dun thinks, the woman does seem the type of woman her uncle is drawn to. Strong-willed, direct, and certainly easy on the eyes. Well, she amends, perhaps she would be without the spear through the chest.

His oath is a slippery thing, Sabra adds, and for the first time since the narrowing of her eyes, Lepis visibly reacts. It’s subtle, a raise of her striped brow, one that just might be indicative of agreement. She would not call him an oathbreaker, but there is no denying that recent events have weakened her faith in the dragon. They’ve also added complexity to the promise that Sabra claims Castile has made to her.

"Castile is not here," Lepis tells the pale mare, "But I will keep his promise to you. You are welcome to recover here." It does not occur to her to deny the woman a place here, for all that Lepis is uncertain that recovery is even possible. The way the mare moves around the spear speaks of magic. Surely she should not being moving if it were a mundane injury, one with natural causes? The way Sabra glances away, as though at some invisible spook, suggests the same, and Lepis nearly frowns.

And then she does frown, but it is thoughtful rather than concerned. "I can’t heal you," she tells Sabra. "but I might be able to do…something. If you would let me?"

She’d achieved victory in the world that the magician had made, mostly through liberal use of her own arcane talents. She’d not used them with empathy in mind, though. Perhaps this time, in the real world, doing so will grant her a more permanent victory.

@[Sabra]

Though the ground they tread with conversation grows more sturdy as they continue their back-and-forth, Lepis is still wary of the spear and the blood. It’s all well and good for Castile to invite Sabra here to heal, but who does he expect to care for her? Does she even need care? Surely at least an extra set of eyes with her at all time; that blood is sure to lure predators.

It might even lure in the equine type, and Lepis’ mouth nearly twists with displeasure at the possibility. At least they have Oceane back, she reminds herself. She might be feeling less than fond of the piebald at the moment, but he is not without his positive qualities. It is easy to forget those when one is irritated or ill at ease.

Calm, she reminds herself, keeping the emotion within her chest. Nodding, Lepis takes note of the other mare’s careful speak. It is at odds with her bluntness before. Perhaps she is simply hurting. Lepis had not been patient with her broken wing. Reminding herself to feel a little more patient as well, Lepis is unbothered by Sabra’s reaction to her offer to help.

“I can control emotions,” she tells Sabra. “Give new ones anyway. I cannot take away the pain of that…thing. But I can make you feel better about it, at least temporarily.” Her tone is straightforward, and the offer she makes seems simple.

Still lulled by her own projection, Lepis takes the accusation that dulling pain is dishonest with nothing more than a flick of her ears. So be it, says a shrug of her golden shoulders. If the motion shifts her navy mane, making her own scars visible for a moment, it is surely not intentional. She will let the subject drop then, her reaction seems to say, at least until she adds with a more obvious sense of finality: “If you change your mind, you need only ask.”

Then Lepis shifts her weight, a physical sign that she, too, is satisfied with where this conversation has brought them. She either ignores Sabra’s exposed weariness or does not see it with her blue-grey eyes on the horizon. Anything else, Sabra asks, drawing Lepis’ attention back to the face of the opalescent mare.

“Go on,” she says mildly. There’s a sense of dismissal about the phrase, the casual way she turns her body just the smallest bit away with the way she leans. And once more, chooses to add something when before she’d seemed finished.

“The Crescent shaped lake is saltwater. Whether that’s better or worse for a wound like that, I think you’d not appreciate the surprise regardless.” Lepis rather enjoys a salt soak at the end of a cool autumn day, but she does not having a gaping hole in her chest. Sabra might have other preferences, Lepis allows.