yael

Dear G-d, he is persistent! A dark thought flashes in the link between her brain and eyes - ever so brief, just the faintest spark of annoyance and ire in her rich, expressive gaze- but it is quickly buried by the little mare’s astounding willpower. Mind over matter. Control. Paint the prettiest picture and hope that is enough. Use your diplomacy, she thinks. For vague, non-answers were once her speciality.  

“Perxaps,” Yael concedes, with a small, tight smile, deigning to swallow what she wanted to add as a caveat, I can alvays use more friends. She’s learned that hope is a useful tool, and if when they meet again, he will most likely remember her as the mare who left the door open a crack, rather than the mare that shut, locked, and threw away a key. Stallions like Gaal are useful. She doesn’t want to be manipulative, truly, nor does she think he is a fool - but size and position have placed her in need of allies (for lack of a better word).

Or so her wounded, scarred, and triggered heart tells herself. But oh, it is a tricksy thing, and mastered self-preservation long ago.  

Dorobo he says, and Yael can only shrug a little to indicate that she is not familiar with that name. “I, too, am from far avay from xear.” Worlds and ‘rips in time and space’ kind of far away, but she does not say that. “An area called Tzion, in ze land of Yisrael. And t’en anozer place, called B’kanna. And now - “ She tosses her head to make light of all the different homes she’s had. A quiet, tinkling sort of half-laugh, half-sigh falls from her lips as she names what will surely be her final home - her resting place, her deathbed. “- seemply Yael of Xelovia.” She cocks a hind leg in comfort and resettles herself, wing-tips accidentally grazing his own. “Ah, sorry. Are you xere out of necessity or xappenstance?”

Though her questions only scratch the surface and are the stuff of small talk, there can be no mistake that they are sincere and she is genuinely interested in this multi-colored titan before her. Even now, she finds herself at ease under his often intent, piercing, and flirtatious gaze (don’t think she hasn’t notice the lust that flashes in their depths), for it is a heat she is well-accustomed to, and it can never be as intense as what came before.

But she will never say no to a nice long visit to a sauna.