_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

The grin becomes genuine as he listens to her response, no longer the shadow of a ludicrous thing stretched across his face. He is shocked, sincerely; her words are even and biting, speaking tangible things instead of heated by some cloud of oblivious, buoyant passions. His interest settles, fixed in his mind. Thousands upon thousands of inquiries invade his skull, stretched for truth like feelers for salt in the ocean current; his hypotheses morph and evolve from the solid truth of an ignorant filly. Mares, he guesses, are different creatures entirely; they are solidified from the vexing puddle that is the fillyish pestilence, perhaps into something that perceives instead of feels, that sees the path they walk instead of rushing forward, blinded by tears, or arrogance, or hatred.

He forgives this arrogance, easily; he is amused by her. He settles backward, right hind cocked beneath him, easing into his stance as he gazes on her clover-swathed form. A ghost of laugher slips his tongue when she calls him boy; it escapes again, louder this time, when she confesses her ignorance of the bedlam that has encased Helovia, the chaos that adores to shift mongrels from left to right, helter-skelter, to lose their heads to unfathomable panic, to piss in places where they don’t belong. “It will,” he says, simply, his warning, his only hint. He does not care for her ignorance—or, truly, her enlightenment on the battlefield she deigns to enter. He only knows that she is interesting, for now.

Another joins them—drops from the skies in a burst of black and ivory, feathers flying everyplace, loosed from their mistress’s wings. Reginald’s ears pin swiftly; he edges away from the sudden explosion of a Pegasus. Yet another mare, whose words bubble and froth from her mouth eagerly, almost endlessly. He narrows his eyes, listening to her speech, looking passed the vague annoyance of shrill notes to the information she so willingly gives. The Dragon’s Throat--he does not know this place. He is enthralled, surely, because he cannot sanction an unknown territory—and also because of a peculiarity to her scent that captures his attention ludicrously, harshly. The scent is familiar; she is a stranger, but the sun-baked something that lingers about her stirs in his memory, doing nothing to quell his earlier restlessness. He does not like her for this simple reason, for a transgression she could do nothing to prevent.

His attention returns to the lady of dragon-scales, a gilt title flowing from her mouth in a familiar way, a lilting cadence of annoyance that he has come to associate with blueblood brats--then it is dropped, suddenly and mercilessly, and he finds her to be honest. His bemused pleasure with her rushes back into place, pushing away the disgusting memories that aggravate, and haunt. The sensation vanishes completely when she directs a question to him; his ears perk forward, his striking gaze uncensored as his curiosity is given permission to express itself. “Not on dragons, no,” he answers her, soft and frank. He settles again into a stance of ease. “Many here bond with dragons…though not in the same way.” His smile is charming; he does not mean to be so provocative. It is truth, and he feel s no shame in admitting his confusions. She asked.

His name is a mystery to her? Well, it had always remained so for everyone, for the longest time; who is there to give himself to, to lay bare his identity? But she has reason; he’s here to taste and not to bite, and it is only right that he gives his name in return for her own lengthy, useless title. It is only fair. “I am Reginald,” he states, his name a rasp that gargles in the pit of his throat. He’s not one for titles or ancestry; he is good enough of a thing to be, supremely so.


"talk talk talk"