"Ugh"
"I know"
"Hate it when it's so... sticky"
Nanda nodded.
"And you know that, before the heat ends, you'll end..." Applejack paused, trying to remember the right word "...Wet" she said in Nanda's mother tongue.
Nanda laughed.
"Do you hear yourself, child?"
Applejack replayed the words in her head, then muttered under her breath, annoyed. The oppressive heat didn't help, either, or the heavy feel of humidity in it. Or her imposed companion.
"It's the backlash of so much energy moving at once, you know" said Nanda nonchalantly.
"Ah"
"The air is charged with static, and the static produces heat..."
"Su- sure"
Nanda didn't continue. Applejack opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Maybe this was how the old mare went about mourning. Or maybe she mourned when out of sight. She'd think Nanda wasn't mourning at all, hadn't it been for how angry she had been before.
She felt sad for Amber, and she had barely known him. It was alienating to see someone who had just lost her husband go about her business without much concern.
They kept walking in silence.
"Nanda?" she found herself asking.
"Yes?"
"Nothing"
"It's been "Nothing" six times today"
The terrain was changing, too, to a more rocky one.
"We are reaching the Surane mountains, right?" she asked, mainly to fill the silence.
"Bloka, but yes"
Winona, who was a few meters behind them, barked at something.
They both turned, Applejack hoping for something to distract her, but sadly life reserves nastiness for when you don't want it, so the only thing she saw was a fleeing fox, barely bigger than a lynx.
"Ugh"
-ยบ-
By noon, Nothing had been eight times and Winona had caught a small bird, which both of them elected to very pointedly not notice.
"Brothers?" Asked Applejack.
"Two of 'em, probably died of age by now. Never was very attached to my family. You?"
"Big Mac and Apple Bloom"
"Waiting for you, I expect?"
"And taking care of our granny"
Nanda nodded without a comment.
"And just how old are you?" she asked after a moment.
"Old enough"
"Ah" the exact same age as granny, unsurprisingly.
"Stopped counting a while ago, anyway. Didn't see much use in it anymore"
Applejack noticed herself edging a little further from the zebra.
"Not a lich, you fool" Nanda rolled her eyes "Why can't people ever get it in their heads? Use enough magic and your body starts getting weird. I think I got reverse cancer or something"
Applejack didn't quite understand, but nodded anyway.