No, stop!

Sounds like somebody else wants my tasty morsel, and there's no way in hell I'm giving it up. I am not a confrontational man, but I will guard food with my life. So I ignore the plea and lean closer and closer to the branch, my eyes glowing with greed as I prepare to take that first, delicious bite...

Then the next thing I know, I have been rugby tackled, and I'm lying on my side in the snow, dazed. Dazed, and still hungry - I hadn't managed to take a bite of the branch before I was so inelegantly charged. My ears flip back and I give a ferocious bellow as I roll around, desperately trying to get back on my feet. "Do you mind?!" I say indignantly, hooves in the air like I just don't care as I flail around like a beached turtle. My shoulder aches where the mare - the shame, knocked over by a mare - collided with me, as does my side where it slammed into the ground, only slightly padded by snow. Finally I manage to gather my limbs under me and rise to my feet, shaking the snow from my pelt and fixing the bi-coloured female with the filthiest glare I can muster.

She is about my size, and if it wasn't for my hunger-related rage, I would probably have got a little bubble of excitement about the human hand-shaped print on her flank and shoulder, or the finger-painted circle around her eye. As it is, I don't even notice those things - I just see a rude little madam who had the bare-faced cheek to push me away from my dinner. "You wild horses are so rude! If you wanted to share, you only had to ask." I flatten my ears down further and flip my head up to glower at her, the brass on my halter jingling as I do so. Honestly, did her dam not teach her any manners? I'd been whipped away from my own mother far too young, but she'd still had ample time to teach me the ins and outs of horse etiquette. Obviously I sometimes ignored those unwritten rules, and was not adverse to cocking a leg at somebody getting too close or aiming a sharp bite at a rambunctious yearling, but I would never dream of barging somebody away from their lunch!

I shift, wanting to go back towards my branch, whilst muttering under my breath about manners and barbarians and are all mares so moody when spring arrives...