"If you can hide, styrangeyr--" 

"My name is Novitas." 

"If you can hide, Novitas, you should." 

Not at all certain what reason there could be to hide from something as small as a samanayr, Novitas still obliges and again goes invisible, wrapping magic and light around herself so that no one else can see her. Mystic of the Fragmented Shadow continues to stare at her-- or, at least, where she had last been visible, though his accuracy is unnerving-- then nods once, as if in approval, and continues on down the mountainside. Novitas follows, trying to be as quiet as possible. 

Since she is not actively searching for them, the two mares Jed warned her about, and presumably the "not exactly" Shadow had referred to, surprise her when they surge out of the thickening underbrush with wild cries, a strange, not-quite-discordant sound much like a song, but not like any music the other samanayrs have sung in her presence. It is harsher, somehow, fiercer. Shadow crouches down in a position no true horse could ever manage, ears flat back to his skull but eyes very bright and focused on the pair with something that is not exactly submission. 

The song, if that is indeed what it is, stops, and the mares stamp in place. The green and yellow one, marked heavily with criss-crossing of scars, stands tall-- though not nearly as tall as Shadow who, Novitas thinks, is rather tall for the species-- before him. Behind her is another mare, this one with an erect silver mane and tail, lavender in color, with three horns on her face and clawed paws instead of hooves. Both of them wear the same harness as Shadow. The scarred one says something in a fluting, chirping sort of speech, the gist of which Novitas picks up psionically as: "Why are you here?" 

Shadow replies in the common Nexian tongue, accented or not: "I meyrely wished a visit, Clash. Clatteyr." There is an odd pitch in his voice at the latter word, and the horned samanayr shakes herself vigorously before baring her teeth at him past the scarred one's flank. 

Clash, the scarred one, rears up threateningly, lashing at him with her hooves. He doesn't move, but she doesn't quite hit him. She sounds angry, though, when she trumpets, "You have no place heyre! Begone, byroken one, befoyre I foyrce you!" 

"Seeing you is enough," Shadow says very softly. "I will go." He leaps back to his feet and wheels away, turning to gallop back the way he'd come. Novitas lingers only long enough to watch the two mares glare after him before slipping to follow. 

"That's your 'not exactly alone'?" Novitas asks once she deems them far enough away, and once Shadow has slowed to a walk again. 

"Aye," Shadow says shortly. "They escaped with me. If I weyre any otheyr," he laughs, though the laugh is harsh, "or they any otheyrs, we would be a Song. Be togetheyr. But I am I, and they ayre they, and they will have nothing to do with me. Clash of the Shatteyred Spiyrit is enough of a stallion for heyrself, and Clatteyr of the Tayrnished Silveyr follows heyr lead in many things. This is one of them." 

"What is-- Clatter of the Tarnished Silver? She doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before." 

"Clatteyr is a samanayr'sa'kyrien. She hunts, eats meat, and is veyry aggyressive, but veyry strong, and veyry byrave...." 

Novitas looks over at him skeptically. "Sounds like you admire her." The Mystic's silence is answer enough, and Novitas adds, "She doesn't seem to like you much." 

"She follows Clash's lead in many things," Shadow repeats. "But she has shown otheyr feelings. Sometimes, if I find heyr alone, she will speak to me. She has saved my life, befoyre." 

"Oh?" Novitas asks. "Saved your life?" 

"Do not ask me! I will not speak of it to a styrangeyr!" the Mystic growls, in another sudden change of mood, and his shadow lashes out with insubstantial shadow-teeth. Novitas only narrowly avoids a shadow-bite, and a follow-up shadow-kick-- if such things are even possibly dangerous-- by side-stepping swiftly and instinctively. Real tail lashing, Shadow glares at her, then starts marching stiffly away. 

Notivas glares after him, annoyed but also confused, until he pauses and looks over his shoulder. "My apologies, Novitas," the now woeful-looking samanayr says. "Come again some otheyr time. Peyrhaps I will not be so yrude, then." Then he continues into the forest, leaving Novitas just confused. 

And even more than that, when she realizes on the way back down the mountain that she's still invisible, Somehow, he knew where she was the whole time. That is strange. "I'll definitely come again some other time," she mutters to herself thoughtfully. "If just to see what in the world you are."