08-09-2016, 01:40 AM
Her entire life had been constellations of unfamiliar faces, strangers - though she had found none of them to be all that strange. The Tundra was a busy kingdom, and even though it sat cold and uninviting, surrounded by a nearly impenetrable wall of gleaming ice, there had never been a shortage of newcomers. In such, she had also never learned fear. There were few, if any, who would be eager to incur the fury of her father by stepping inside his borders with anything less than good intentions. So when the young stallion does blink into existence like a star flickering out of the night, fear and discomfort are the furthest things from her mind. They are things that have yet to be carved into the soft of her heart.
He laughs at her quip and the sound is full of rust as though perhaps it startled him, too. But this only deepens the smile on her own lips, only deepens the gleam in her dark, wild eyes. He is so different from the others, and there had been so many others, all vowing and vying and eager to serve their new King. But this one, Tobiah, he was refreshingly new.
Her head tips a little to the side, her chin jutting out curiously in his direction. “A drawback?” And there is another smile against her mouth, a dare in her eyes. “I think going unseen is the very point of being invisible.” There is a moment then, when that smile fades a little and her eyes widen slightly, a moment where she wonders if Tobiah, like Isle, still struggled to control his abilities. She stays quiet a beat longer than she might’ve otherwise, eyeing him as casually as she knew how before pushing the conversation on and past just in case.
She turns to look in the direction her points, her brow furrowing once her dark eyes landed on the lonely distance. But the reprimand he is wary to receive does not come, it will never come. Australis is many things, but she is not a diplomat, not a warrior, and the politics of not allowing a stranger inside the border - especially one who makes her laugh - are of no interest to her. Instead, when she turns back to face him with a brow still furrowed beneath thick tangles of black mane, she ambushes him will a different question. “Do you live alone, then?” And for once her smile is tinged with something darker, etched just a little more heavily with shadow against her quiet face.
“Oh, me?” She says when he reciprocates the question, realizing quickly that a self proclaimed outsider would not be likely to recognize one of the Tundra princesses. But instead of sharing this with him, she finds another smile, this one effortless and easy when it curls around her mouth, and says cryptically, “Yeah, I live around here. Mostly you can find me in the caves beneath the mountain. Kingdom affairs aren't really my forte.”