His head tilts in amusement as more unfamiliar words tumble from the fortune tellers mouth, these loud and acidic in the air, their meaning easy enough to discern in context. "A little water won't hurt the thing." He mildly answers her rebuke, but his attention drifts past the mare, his spindly neck rising to let him peer toward the back of the cave where his ailing eyes can just make out a mound of white and pink fluff against the back wall of the cavern. Brows pinching, he wonders what illness affects the candy-corn, what symptoms could squelch his usual enthusiasm.

Ears twitching uncertainly, a ghost of real concern flits across his features, but though he might have asked the crafter himself of his condition and given hint of his own emotion, that modicum of camaraderie does not transfer to the wanna-be witch occupying his cave. He stares just long enough to be sure of the rise and fall of the Weavers sides, then turns, but before his emerald eyes have time to refocus on the foreground of the cave a flurry of sound and motion breaks out behind him.

A clamor of thunder and scrambling hooves heralds the appearance of something slim and vaguely yellow tinted. The thing bursts into the cave with a wild squealing, its trajectory pointed directly at the old stallions hips. He shudders in surprise, haunches clenching and curling behind him and one hoof lashes out in instinctive assault. The whomp of flesh meeting flesh is loud and hollow, their close quarters keeping the sound confined.

'Young.' His companion reports from the vantage of his bondeds withers. "And stupid." The stallion replies aloud. "What the fuck are you doing?" He accuses, but the venom of his words is borne of frustration and the immediate shame that burns through his chest on sight of the filly. He's kicked a foal, a baby, a child.

Old habits... his subconscious cruelly jokes, sending too many emotions flurrying through his mind at once and the underlying pain of his thoughts thrums once through his system, slicking his ears back against his poll and jerking his companion into a defensive s-curve. Not again, he silently groans in dismay, but his mouth stays tightly shut, his expression one of malice and blame.

"You can't just careen into people like that." He chides the youth, his harsh tone and over-defensiveness hiding the truth of his feelings."You're gonna get yourself killed that way."

The python on his back stays coiled protectively, a silent observer of the titans around him, but he wonders at the automatic and violent contrariness of his bondeds thoughts and actions. Why does he huff and pin his ears and make snide remarks when all he really wants to do is say, I'm sorry?

The stallion falls back a step, creating distance between himself and the other two conscious occupants of the cave, hoping the sudden crumbling of the eggs outer shell and the tiny noises emanating from within it will redirect the pairs attention while he steadies his breathing and corrals his emotions back to their monochromatic range of annoyance and indifference.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Aisling @Larue