Albrecht&Strom

Another loose cannon, gone bi-polar, Slipped down, couldn't get much lower

It’s no secret that the hot springs are the old stallions favorite haunt around the Basin. He’s here so often, in fact, that the only secret is how he manages to stay so distressingly filthy despite regular soaks in the rich mineral water. He’s even beginning to suspect that the other herd members are actively avoiding the area due to his regular attendance, so rarely does he ever encounter another soul enjoying the main attraction of the north, not that it bothers him any. Solitude suits the old black. He’s comfortable with silence, with doing nothing. When he’s in company he’s expected to adhere to certain niceties, not that he ever does, but he’s sure there’s an expectation of such things.

Anticipating another silent, solo dip, he has no reason to suspect the slight sloshing of the water as anything but natural movement - wind perhaps, seismic activity, a change in the flow of liquid from the small fissures at the bottom of the pools – there are plenty of rational explanations. So he tilts his head up and lowers his neck, allowing the heavy loop of wool he wears as both bag and scarf to slip over his head and land in a heap near the edge of the water before shaking himself and plodding down to the shallow end of the spring, intending to wade in until he’s deep enough to lay down and rest his bearded chin along the rim, worn smooth many years ago by the tread of countless hooves.



"Talk."
OOC // Glasgow

Albrecht&Strom

Another loose cannon, gone bi-polar, Slipped down, couldn't get much lower

While the old stallion would like to blame the cover of thick steam rising across the surface of the water for his shudder of surprise when the mare speaks - She is the right color to blend in, after all. It’s not like he’s sporting any visual acuity at his age. - the likelihood that she has been visible all this time and that he’s simply let his anticipation turn to complacency in the comfort of familiar surroundings and never bothered to actually look in the first place is pretty damn high.

He pivots to face her, chagrin written across his weathered features and heart hammering with the aftereffects of adrenaline, neither of which find reason to lessen in the ghastly visage that meets him. Scars running from mouth to cheek, eyes that are hauntingly blue or milky white and run through with smaller, though no less gruesome scars themselves, and the fractured remnant of a second horn still jutting from the forward plane of her skull, the mare is a perfect image of some childhood monster said to steal away small children who disobey the wisdom of their parents. In contrast, her dialogue is polite and ordinary, her body language demure. The old black quiets himself, blinking away his instinctively blind assumptions and mentally asserting that eighteen years is much too old to still put stock in cautionary wives’ tales.

"Not intruding.” He answers, trying to assemble his face into an expression of either neutrality or innocent interest. "We’re just, well, lazing. It’s a specialty of ours.” One grey flecked ear tips back, tilting his head with it, to gesture at the pile of stained wool on the rim of the pool, his companion rooting his pear shaped head from the layers of fabric perfectly on cue, his tongue flicking wildly to create an image of the mare his tiny and nearsighted eyes can’t possibly detect.


"Talk."
OOC // @Glasgow

Albrecht&Strom

Another loose cannon, gone bi-polar, Slipped down, couldn't get much lower

"He is.” The old stallion answers plainly, stepping into the springs with a sigh of contentment as the geothermally heated water washes against his legs and belly, furling his clumped and greasy beard like a tattered banner in strong winds. He folds his knobby legs and leans against the smooth stone rim of the same pool the mare has chosen, using their combined mass to displace the water enough to cover his tall, narrow withers and jutting spine, his chin resting happily on the sun-warmed ledge.

For a moment he’s too content to say anything else, his eyelids drooping and nostrils relaxing from their habitually angry pinching as warmth soaks into his muscles and banishes the unnatural, unconquerable chill from his bones, at least temporarily. It’s not until his companion drags himself across the greying bridge of the stallion’s nose that he opens his eyes again, watching the snake oscillate himself across the surface of the water, determined to meet this self-proclaimed snake lover.

"He doesn’t know the meaning of personal space.” The black warns, "But he’s harmless really. Like a legless puppy.” While silently he warns the python to be careful, though it does nothing to slow his approach or curb his excitement at meeting a prospective new friend, the positive experience of meeting Syrena still fresh in his young mind and now blissfully undistracted by shedding.

The little snake, still barely more than a foot in length but much thicker and more muscular than he’d been at hatching (and heavier, the stallion would complain), wriggles his way across the pool toward the mare, his nose tilted up and forked tongue working wildly against the air. It’s only his bonded’s deeply ingrained mistrust that alters the companion’s course from rushing directly into the mare to struggling his way onto the stone ledge near her front, his pear shaped head turning this way and that to look at her with his poor eyesight.

Releasing the held breath of a father’s tension for his charge, the old stallion glances back to the mare’s scarred face, letting the comforts of warmth and rest soften his usually abrupt responses. "A few years, I guess.”

He knows it’s been almost three years now, which should feel like a substantial amount of time, but the misfortunes that drove him here are fresh and raw as if they’d happened only this morning, still haunting his thoughts and his dreams. He shakes his head. "It doesn’t feel like it.”


"Talk."
OOC // @Glasgow