Overly large eyes caught movement on the blustery sands— the unblinking gaze was accustomed to finding traces of movement (it often meant a meal beneath the waves). Her gaze was also accustomed to finding predators in the sky; but, for some reason, she missed the dragon for the approaching mare. Gaze shifted, neck twisted, an ear swiveled forward; but she did not move from her cold, crouched stance as she watched the dark grullo mare approach. And, for certain, it was a mare, her graceful topline and sculpted face gave her away.
Still and waiting, she watched the unhurried strides of black legs, thicker than her own. Her hooves were solid— she was assuredly a woman built for land. Her inspection caught the steam rising from her slate skin and ridged nostrils scented the sweat foam that clung to her hide. She was envious of the heat that radiated from her mouse-grey form. Some droplets had frozen to strangely shaped icicles amid her own, plated skin.
The woman approached closer, closer— so close that the flecks in her vivid red irises could be seen. But it wasn’t the crimson that held the Aquila’s attention— no, it was the mare’s lashes. They stretched and swept up, thick and framing her scarlet eyes. It wasn't often that Aquila blinked, but she did (once) in that moment, suddenly acutely aware of the lack of lashes brushing her own cheeks.
She had never noticed that before.
She remained silent, though her other ear joined its partner to twist and point towards the woman as a blush warmed the ivory skull on her face. She was blushing? Aquila blinked once again (twice in succession! a record, surely). Fins slowly fanned from her neck as her head cocked slightly.
A brief lull in the winter wind allowed the stranger’s emanating heat to hit her coat-less skin which rippled in brief respite, but then the wind swept both heat and words away as soon as she spoke them. Raised ridges twitched at the voice as the aquatic mare slowly worked her jaw out of its frozen clench, “I am,” were her first simple words. A pause, and then, “You are warm, but this wind will soon chill you, too,” her throaty growl was quieted by the chill, “How can you help?”
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