Ridahne gave a small laugh and nodded. She sort of agreed with her statement about animals, as she found that animals rarely ever disappointed her. Animals would not have thrown her out of her home, even after what she'd done. They were practical creatures and would have understood why she did it. They were much simpler to understand, too. Meet their needs, know their personality, and that was all it took. There was no binding law of honor or duty to bind them either. 

"You'll get used to it soon enough. You're about to spend your life on horseback for an unknown period of time. Could be years, could be three weeks, I don't know. But before you know it, you won't have saddlesores, you'll find the smell of horse to be your own personal perfume, and you'll wonder how you ever struggled keeping on his back. And animals are simpler than people. Much simpler. They are bound by less and want for little." 

A breath of wind swept past, giving life to her dark curls that hung about her shoulders. Ridahne sniffed, wondering if rain was coming. Usually she liked rain, as it was a rare occurrence in Azurei except up in the mountains or far off the coast. She liked to stand in it, let it tap on her skin in warm drops. Except up this way rain was rarely warm. It was often quite cold, in fact, and it was made all the worse by the fact that when it struck, she was usually somewhere on the road and didn't have any proper shelter and was forced to sleep under a barely waterproofed waxed-canvas sheet, though she always seemed to wake up soaking wet anyway. By the tree, she hoped it didn't rain. 

"Mitaja?" Ridahne shrugged and shook her head. "Not sure...around somewhere. We have used her kind for hunting for centuries, as long as our people lived in the sands. They are native to that region and are excellent at finding game, so we tamed them and brought them into our homes. But we do not keep them captive like dogs here, no collar or leashes for them. We let them roam," she said with a lax wave of a slim hand. "They go where they will, but they answer our calls and heed our commands. But they do it because we are partners, not because they have to. I've had Mitaja for twenty years and she has been good to me. Here, I will call her..." 

Ridahne tilted back her head and let forth a long, two noted whistle. The sound was loud and sharp and echoed a little even amongst the trees, and after a few breaths of silence, the sound of padding feet crunching through underbrush began to get louder and nearer until the cat appeared by Ridahne's side, brushing her face against Tsura's foreleg. The horse was used to her and didn't shy away, though he seemed a little irritated by having something so underfoot. The cat looked at her handler with big yellow eyes and, not receiving a command, flicked her tail lazily and padded off to say hello to Darin. Her head was easily the size of the human's, though wider, and her paws were the size of Darin's palm. Yet unlike a tiger, she was not thickly built but tall, leggy, and slender. Her coat was fine and close, and where it was not dulled by road dust it was glossy. The cat sniffed at Darin's hand and purred, pushing her head under it to demand pets like any little housecat would. Her purr was deep and rumbling, resonant from her deep chest. 

"She likes you...a lot," Ridahne remarked. "She's amiable to strangers usually, though not so outgoing about it. Usually she's a bit more aloof than that. You can thank her for leading me to you on the road. I think she knows. I think she's always known," Ridahne said with a slow nod of understanding. "Do you...have abilities now that you're...?" She didn't say it out loud, it was best not to. "Or have you always had a way with animals? Do you have the same with people, too?"