The roan stood as if anchored, only his eyes and ears following the mare along her circumference of the pool. He watched her amble past, heard the affable tone of her voice, but these conscious tricks did nothing to hide the conflict in her body. She smirked and flashed those deep blue eyes as if to challenge, but only from the safety of the waters opposite edge. A tiny flame of excitement sparked alight in the stallion’s chest. It licked at the chambers of his heart and set them to a quicker rhythm. He had seen the twitch of distress cross the mares dark features, had watched her cover the sting of it with movement, almost.

Saliva pooled in the corners of the stallion’s mouth and he was forced to swallow before it visibly wet his lips. His instincts only saw the vulnerability in front of him, but his mind began to question. Was the mare genuinely fearful of his presence or just feigning so to lure him? She kept sizing him up, evaluating this quarter or that even as she began to close the distance between them. The roan watched her approach and wondered what powers a unicorn might have in a land where the blind could command whole forests to move in their defense.

"Reynier.”

He answered simply, more to fulfill his side of the exchange and gain future response than for any intrinsic pride in the label. It was the only name he knew, one of the only things he could truly remember. Not a christening from mother or father, he couldn’t remember any if he’d ever had them; it was the name the warm weight of approval against his thoughts had always used for him. The name his shadow occasionally taunted from its indistinguishable place among the darkness of the forest floor.

”Do all the horses here have powers? Magic?”

This was a question he actually wanted answered, the one he'd paid for with compliance of conversational structure. He had a sense that Helovia was not the first land he'd been sent to on mission, though he couldn't remember others, but something felt wrong here. The roan was displaced somehow. He could not understand why the gods would grant their own powers, even in tiny, diluted doses, to the common creatures of the world. Hadn’t they been taken advantage of for less?

He peered down through the water of the pool, at its crimson blood-jeweled floor. A great weight seemed to settle across his back even before the mare replied. He didn't need her answer. Reynier had only one purpose, and if this place had been some sanctuary of chosen so loved by the gods that they’d granted the inhabitants not just life and gifts of every kind and color, but also a part of their own powers, then this judgment was more tragic than any other.


Tags: @[Sialia]
OOC: I won’t tell you how long I worked on this, because then you’ll want to know why it’s not longer.. and better.. but I’m glad I finally got a reply out for you. I'm sorry about the wait.