The atmosphere was different now. It didn't feel as friendly or inviting. The mention of Connor had spread like smoke and now threatened to choke out any other conversation that might try to take root. She watched Alvina with a calm she had perfected over her long life. Her voice when it eventually did come was not one of defense or condescending nature. Rather it was just a turn of the werewolf's words. "And you are not, Alvina?"

Suddenly the tension in the air was broken by a door swinging open. Connor entering with a monkey on his shoulders and a wolf at his heels. Solara's heart quickened at the sight of him, something that she immediately mentally chided herself for. He was muddied with drying blood on his cheek but in one piece. A tentative smile came to her lips when he drew nearer, the stormy expression giving her pause. If he was coming to criticize her some more she just might force herself to walk just to smack him. Thankfully that expression faded soon enough and he came to kneel before her. She tensed at the hand that lingered near her cheek, afraid he might touch the bruised and battered flesh. "I am. I have Alvina and her people to thank for it."

She looked briefly to Alvina, feeling a tightening in her gut. She had refused the woman any information as to what she might know about Connor, or even the nature of their relationship. Which she really didn’t know herself. But in this moment with Connor kneeling before her she worried that it might come across a little too clear. Solara looked back to the commander when he spoke again. Solara couldn’t help but shake her head. ”No, you shouldn’t have. But not because of this.” She shifted slightly, her face tightening when her leg moved beneath the bloodied bandage. Her gaze went to the bed beside her in offering of a seat if he wished to take it.

Solara reached out to touch his cheek, her thumb skimming gently over the scraped flesh. The dried blood. ”What did you get into?” He was in one piece at least, that was something she was thankful for. But she wished he had taken her with him. And for more reasons than just the whole…nearly dying…thing.

”Did you go after the horses? Or…” Hopefully he hadn’t been foolish enough to try to find her mother. He was alone. Even he could only do so much. ”I may need to make a trip to Imfala soon. Its not in the plans I know but I don’t really want to spend all eternity with a limp.” She scoffed quietly.

Solara stiffened when the commander would reach for the blanket, her dark eyes falling to the bloodied bandage with a frown before she turned her gaze elsewhere. Weakness... It was just another weakness to possibly be exploited. She didn't like that in the least. Despite her rather feminine appearance and graceful way she carried herself, she was a rather stubborn independent woman. And as Connor already knew, she hated being forced to depend on anyone. Connor took a seat then and Solara smoothed the blanket over her leg silently as he spoke. The archer? The one who had sent the message, she assumed.

"Two." She repeated softly. It was no where near the number she had been hoping to take back home but it was better than none. "Perhaps I would have some luck drawing it in." She spoke quietly, mostly to herself. As a familiar fixture in their lives she might get lucky and bring one closer. She moved slightly with a pained grimace. Connor didn't seem happy about the thought of returning to Imfala. Was it because of their argument or something else, she wondered. He still spoke in that detached formal way that he spoke to other nobles. Solara watched him, studying his face before she turned her gaze away. Now was not the time. Not with Alvina present. "Thank you for retrieving the horses, Commander." Came her monotone voice. Her best attempt at mimicking his own.

"I can return alone if you wish. I wouldn't want to inconvenience you more than I already have." It was a bit of a bard but she couldn't help herself. He was being so damn stubborn about all of this. If she could swallow the bitter pill why couldn't he?

A question rolled from his tongue and Solara looked to Alvina before she spoke. The latter half of the story would be blank by her perspective. Hopefully, Alvina could fill in the blanks. "We were ambushed by a group of humans. Humans who apparently would eat Alina's kind. They were hunting...if you could call it that. I took an arrow, sadly my mount took part of it as well. My guide managed to escape. He was a brave man, he didn't want to go. But it is a good thing he did." Solara's face tightened as she shifted so that she might lean back a bit on the pillow. "They wanted me to shift, assuming I was a werebeast. So they...roughed me up a bit." Her stomach churned on that note. She wasn't about to go through getting hit in the face and having someone pry open her wound with the shaft of an arrow. It was best those details never saw light.

Solara had paused, unbeknownst to herself. Briefly, her face scrunched from the memories but she quickly pushed them back. "I passed out eventually. That was when Alvina and her pack came in and saved the day."

"...I wasn't asking you too, Connor." Solara said quietly. Her dark eyes flicking away from him and over to the crackling fire. Why he would automatically make her issues his own made little sense to her. He had said before that it was because she was immortal and he was the commander who had been saddled with the care of their people. But gathering her lost equines hardly fell into such a category. They were also friends. Or at least they had been. She wasn't certain just how he might feel about her since their encounter at the cabin. She had pushed him away, hard. When for the first time he had revealed a more vulnerable side to himself. But it was hard not to wonder if he was just playing her, if he had an ulterior motive. He didn't get to where he was by being bad at playing games. But then again, neither did she.

"I'm hardly a helpless pup you abandoned." She argued gently when he spoke of abandoning her as if she were little more than a helpless idiot. "I knew the danger when I insisted on coming along." His last statement about abandoning her game the immortal woman pause. She watched him in silence. Noting the steely look to his eyes, the set of his jaw. She wanted to reach out to him then. To feel his skin beneath her fingertips again, to taste those delectable lips that she had claimed more often than any woman should have right to. But she didn't. Nearly dying didn't change their circumstances. It didn't change the fact that her mother was still looming over their shoulders like an unhappy god. "Alright." She said gently. Almost how one would soothe a worried child.

Alvina stood and dismissed herself, Solara watched in silence as she along with the remaining werebeasts departed the tent. She could hear Connor moving about and see him from the corner of her eye but didn't look at him until he spoke again. "It looks worse than it is." She said while he peered at her face. Honestly, her face was the least of her concerns, injury-wise. He was trying to navigate to an easier topic than the obvious elephant in the room. The very conversation they had parted on before she had nearly died. She didn't blame him, he couldn't control what a group of insane humans did. But he should have taken her with him because it was what she wanted. He was too prideful to give her that though. And now perhaps he was feeling some misplaced guilt. "I can deal with a bit of an ache, you should know that." In other words she was reminding him yet again that she was tougher than she looked. Something he seemed to often forget.

Solara moved then without even making the conscious decision to do so. She leaned closer, the hand closest to Connor rising to press down on his shoulder. She wasn't really the most mobile at the moment. Her leg was like a chunk of painful lead. The immortal woman's lips would find his throat and press gently against it. Whispered words meant only for him and not a possible nosey werebeast lingering nearby falling from her lips. "Stop blaming yourself, Connor. It isn't your job to protect me from everything." Her hips would move to the curve of his jaw where an equally light press of her lips would occur, and then she leaned back again. "...you are still angry with me." It wasn't a question, she could tell he was unhappy with her. "I wish things hadn't happened the way they did." She wished that they had an actual chance to hash these strange emotions out. To discover the true depths of them. But to be immortal she was left with very little time. "I hate that I hurt you. You are my closest friend. And if I were to be honest to myself you are more than that to me." She sighed. These things were not easy for her to say. Nothing like nearly dying to set things into perspective.

"....If I must marry someone else. Would you wait for me?" What he might be waiting for was up to be questioned. Anything they could have said had been cut short by her mothers stipulations. She felt nervous suddenly, like some meek soft spoken girl who had just admitted her feelings to a crush. She wasn't that girl, but she also was. Her dark eyes watched him and although her face was carefully blank of emotion she was wraught with them. He very well could turn things around and say he felt nothing. She couldn't really blame him if he did.

She expected a refusal. Her question was selfish. Asking him to hang on to whatever this was between them for an undetermined amount of time. As much as she should have let him go and kept pushing him out of her life for his own well being, she wanted to be selfish. She had never felt this way. Never cared so deeply for another soul but at the same time been so infuriated by them on a nearly daily basis. A very long time. She nodded, her dark eyes not breaking away from his face despite the way her heart fluttered nervously at the base of her throat. He seemed conflicted, unsure. He was a man of action, not someone who sat on the sidelines. She knew as much. But this time they had to be tactful, careful. "I wouldn't blame you if you decided against it." She said gently. Offering him an out despite the way it made her throat tighten.

"I will think of something...an untimely death maybe...something. But I have to play the game to find the loopholes." He turned to face her, his hand laying idly on her uninjured leg. Touches like those had become so commonplace between them. A trailing brush of fingers, the graze of a hand, familiar little actions. "I would hope that you would still be there. A sham of a marriage isn't really the way I pictured living my life. But at least its temporary." Her small fingers crept over his hand to curl around it with a soft squeeze. "You could be my dirty little secret." There was a small teasing tone to her voice, if a hesitant one. Afraid of how he might take her words. But it wasn't as if the commander was a man of purity...had he been then she likely wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place.

"Help me make it through the pain of being a noble again without drinking myself to death. That's doing something." Her head tilted to the side for a moment and she bit her lip thoughtfully. "I wonder just how many dark corners that castle has in it anyway?" She was trying to make light of the situation but that was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with how serious it was. How badly she was going to hate it. Being married to someone she didn't care for...laying with a man she had no interest in. She was far from an angel and had her share of fun. But she had never been in a situation where she was forced to sleep with anyone. Up to now.

She leaned in to speak to him in softer tones, her thumb rolling gently over the back of his hand. "I'm sorry about the things I said back there. I was foolish. Just-the thought of losing you....I cant handle that." A soft truthful admission that forced her gaze down to her lap. "But I can do this. We can do this. And then no one will have to die because she will have what she wants." She was failing sorely at being optimistic.

Temporary. They both kept saying that word as if it were some sort of magical chant that would make the time ahead of them pass faster. “It isn’t as if I haven’t been that before.” Briefly she felt a sting. She wasn't ashamed of him, that wasn't the case. But he knew as much. "But never to such a beautiful woman, right?" She was joking of course. Solara was aware that she was attractive. Not the prettiest out there, her jaw was a little too sharp and her eyes a little too large. But she wasn't 'ugly', at least not in her own estimation.

When the Commander leaned in she tilted her head to meet him, her lips just barely grazed by his own before he pulled back. It wasn't what she wanted. She wanted more. She wanted to play another drinking game that left them both bare and thoroughly satisfied. To go back to a time when she still had a ranch. When things were still simple. But she wasn't one to linger on the past. The present wasn't so bleak now, and the future held promise. Because Connor would be there to help her navigate. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth when he pulled back. Grinning at his suggestion. "I'm counting on you on both fronts. You haven't disappointed me yet, Commander."

He had pulled her closer then, leaning in with a sudden ferocity in his gaze that stole her breath. What he ask of her though made her dark eyes fall low, a streak of hurt running through her chest. He didn't trust her. After all this time. After everything, he still didn't trust her. "Of course, Connor..." She said quietly, her voice lacking the teasing lightheartedness that had just returned moments before.

How could he care for her if he didn't trust her? Was his affection perhaps nothing beyond a fleeting infatuation? She didn't know but those questions sat in the back of her mind like stones. She couldn't meet his gaze after that. Or rather, she wouldn't. Still smarting from the unexpected question. "...I don't turn my back on my own, Commander." She said softly, her voice breaking the silence. "And whether you like it or not, you fall into that category." She swiped a pale hand over her face and tensed as a pain rolled down her leg. "Come morning I think we should head to Imfala for a healer." She mumbled. Already beginning to feel the tug of sleep as the words left her lips.