The Secret Grove had first become a favorite grazing spot for the old man several months ago, when the trees had been lush and green, and the sunlight had warmed his threadbare coat. Now, with a layer of snow covering, suffocating, its carpet of grass and clover and the trees just brittle skeletons jutting out of the ground, he shambles back to it with a begrudgingly loyalty. The promise of a stomach full of good tasting things, rather than the stringy, dried out plains grass of the Basin and Steppe keeps him coming back despite his hatred of all things cold, though it doesn't stop him from complaining.

An endless chain of murmured curses and expletives trickles from his mouth as he paws away the snow from a semicircle in front of him, grazing it down to the brown and withered stems before moving on to a new spot. He's sure that he's wasting more energy just finding the grass than he can possibly replace by eating it, but the sweetness of the thick, wide blades placates the worst of his temper and keeps him grinding away at the task despite himself.

His companion, still jealous and wounded over the attention showered on the blacks son, sits pouting inside the discolored wool of his scarf, pointedly ignoring his bonded for all of his cursing and jostling. It's by some miracle of natures bullshit then that the python pushes his little nose out of the folds of insulating material - desperate to breathe fresh air instead of the rancid miasma he's choked down all morning - just in time to see a pocket of warmth large enough to be another horse on the other side of the sheltered clearing. He flicks his tongue to be sure, tasting the proof of his thermal mapping, and then mentally prods the old man with his findings. He doesn't want to talk to the old bastard, but he doesn't want him to be ambushed either.

The stallion lifts his head, squinting in the glare of sunlight on snow, but the snake refuses to be of any further assistance, instead retreating back to the safety of his wool hammock, shoving the dead leaf, gold chain, and various other bits and pieces of junk out of his way. "Fine then." The black huffs, traipsing across the meadow just to see if it is something vicious and hungry that the petulant young serpent might have saved him from, but the mess of grime and decrepitude he encounters is anything but frightening. Oddly, he starts to laugh on catching sight of her - he thinks it's a her anyway - the sound gurgling out of his throat in surprised bursts.

"Is this the one where I meet myself as a woman and we fuck ourselves? I'd always thought it would be the ideal version of she-me," He eyes the mare, comparing his jutting ribs to hers, the matted and dirty coats, the tangled mane versus knotted beard. They're a matched pair in every way aside from gender and color. She even looks old like him, though maybe a few years his younger. He shrugs, still smiling in amusement. "Ah well, who doesn't love a dirty fuck now and then anyway?"



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Sheba So excited for this one. ^.^