Steadily, Kaylia pulled the brush over her horse’s coat, pulling a few stray burrs from his tail as she went, until at last, she was satisfied. Patting Storm’s shoulder, she left the stallion to graze at some of the dry vegetation and returned the brush to her bags, waving a hand quickly in front of her face to discourage a hopeful night time insect before pulling out a small cooking pot and one of her water skins. Carefully, she used some sticks to balance the pot over her fire, pouring out some water to start the process of getting the liquid boiling for some soup. Luckily for her, she hadn’t used up the lunch she had packed for herself. The man she had sold the horses to had insisted she stay for lunch and when his wife started pleading with her as well, she found that she just couldn’t say no.

“Which is probably why you and I are in this mess now.” Kaylia sighed, glancing over at Storm with a wry smile. The horse, of course, didn’t respond.

Retrieving a small bundle of cloth that was tied around a dried soup mix that her adopted mother had taught her to make, Kaylia then paused with her hand brushing a couple of carrots that she had packed. She [I]had[/I] intended to feed them to Storm, but... Well, She would give him one and add the rest to the soup. The idea appealed to her stomach. Separating out one of the orange root vegetables, she whistled to her stallion, getting his attention before tossing him the carrot. He happily lipped it into his mouth, crunching noisily for a moment before he began snuffling around for another.

“No! You only get one!” Kaylia laughed helplessly as Storm nuzzled her shoulder with his nose. Carrots, after all, were his favorite treat. He snorted in patiently, bumping her shoulder a little harder. “Fine! Fine! Take it, you greedy adorable beast!” She squeaked, laughing all the more as she surrendered another of the carrots. “But that’s it! These other two are for me.”

Storm eventually, though rather reluctantly, acquiesced when she started cutting up the remaining carrots and dropping them into the cooking pot along with the soup mix, shuffling away to nibble at the sparse grass once more. Kaylia shook her head, the laughter fading into a few residual bubbles of sound as she stirred her dinner, grateful, Not for the first time, that she had her horse for company.