Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is - Love forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.”
- John Keats

Cineviam hadn’t meant to startle her.

He rarely slunk through the shadows, and even when he meant to be stealthy, the sharp tang of his ashes rarely gave him the opportunity to ambush. Even if he weren’t covered in the stuff and if he had been painted all black, Cineviam still couldn’t make a shadow of himself. He was too big and bold to play chameleon in some dark corner. Yet a gasp grated against the great gray toned beast and he made a face at the mare’s alarm.

Still he refused to look in her direction. Nothing about his carriage was threatening; she would become accustomed to his presence. Or she could take her leave of him – it mattered little to the salt and peppered stallion. It wasn’t until the floating head starting gliding toward him that he finally felt compelled to focus on her once more. If only to check that the head was actually attached to a body. His movements grind to a halt a few feet from the water’s edge, glowing ember-eyes tracing what slowly emerged from below the stream's surface.

The liquid sparkled on her mane of splendidly disheveled hair. It glistened on her legs, which she used as gracefully as a ballerina, and it dribbled from beneath her barrel like shiny coins. From beneath a belly that was well-rounded, heavy with child. Any interest he might have had in the mare, perhaps a male’s desire to spread his seed and build a lasting legacy was all but squashed at the realization that she was already expecting. There is no disappointment for he wanted only the strongest mares to bear his children, thereby improving his future offspring. And of those stalwart mares, he preferred ones with unicorn blood. He doubted such a delicate looking Arabian would handle the pregnancy of a part draft child with ease.

Fortunately she could not begin to guess at his thoughts or she wouldn’t be smiling so prettily with the intention of speaking with him. A lofty flick of his ears is his only reply to her harmonious lyrics for Cineviam did not care to participate in her trivial chitchat. Instead he gave her a wide berth as he moved along the shore, finding a spot that was not clouded, the bottom having been stirred up by her hooves. The moment his lips skim the surface he sucks back greedily, noisily slurping. Ash from his forelock jolted loose, shrouding his reflection. More words pelted him; despite everything she seemed determined to engage him in conversation. He raises his head, muzzle dripping. Those blood red eyes meeting her purple ones.

“Shouldn’t you be in the safety of a herd Daenery’s?” He alluded to her vulnerable state after she introduced herself. His deep voice had a timbre and a resonance that in another brute would have conveyed only self assurance but that, combined with his size and hard features, suggested menace.

It was a far more interesting subject to the soot-stained stallion than the weather or time of day.