Apart from the stallion’s massive girth and strange semi-stoney hide, his diction was strange. It gave the mare pause, her audits twitching, trying to decipher where he would have developed his sense of language. It was both incredibly forthright and muddled. The emphasis that he placed on certain things, the dense trees (although Torielle wouldn’t have considered the outermost edge of the Viride to be dense at all), his clipped and overly broad response to her first inquiry. It seemed the strange man was very literal. The dusky mare made a mental note of this, as her own speech patterns were more fluid, fantastical. This disparity might cause them some confusion if she wasn’t careful. 

For now, it provided an interesting spice to the conversation. A mindfulness that she hadn’t practiced in a long time. That awareness branched out beyond her words and to the placement of her body in relation to his own. When he stepped closer to her, initiating their walk, he cared not for the gentlemanly concept of space. On one hand she was grateful for the warmth and subsequent shield from the cool winds that whipped around the meadow,  with the other it spoke to his lack of boundaries, though if it was simply a mismanagement of his size or something more she could not rightfully say. 

Torielle was startled when she saw the darkness of his muzzle reach towards her, intending to take in her scent. She pulled back suddenly, the bells woven between the branches of her antlers crying a chorus of frazzled nerves. She flicked her copper banner in annoyance. Did this stallion have no manners? 

He provided his name at least before the next bizarre set of words fell from his lips. The mare’s audits flattened against her skull as she balked. “What on earth? Excuse me?” she breathed, incredulous, her mind whirring. 

He’d been searching for her? She was a gift from the gods? A future? Suddenly his towering height morphed from genial and protective to looming and malicious. His darkness overwhelmed her, and there was a heartbeat where she realized that if she chose to bolt his stride may make up the difference for her speed. Frustration and anger bubbled up in her, an emotion she did not indulge in often or lightly. 

She snorted, stamping one hoof to the solid winter ground, squaring herself up to him, a fire burning in her belly. “The audacity,” the mare retorted. “Who do you believe you are, Jarek,” she spat the name like one does a distasteful morsel from their mouths. “Stranger in a strange land, to approach a lone woman and encroach upon her space and spout fortunes of gods unheard and claim to have been seeking her like a gift to be snatched up or a whore to be bought?” 

Though the midnight stallion had every bit of height and muscle on her, Torielle had been holding back a significant amount of rage. Rage she had refused to acknowledge, and this boldness, this rudeness had provided her just the excuse she needed to relieve the pressure. Her body quaked as the violence rolled through her blood, causing her jewels to tremble against her red-hot skin. 

“I’ll have you know that I have known a thousand gods in a thousand lives. I have worshiped at the altars of beings you could only dream of. I have walked the Astral Planes time and time again, and in all of my lifetime I have never met another being so brash, so assuming and so… so…” the mare struggled, her words tumbling from her lips like a frothing river. “ Arrogant! If all of your people have customs as rude as yours, I’m not sure it’s a wonder why you are wandering foreign lands.” 

Finally the mare turned her head, huffing, muttering, her anger nearly spent. “If you intend to make it far, might I suggest you develope some manners.” Completely disregarding that her tirade had excluded her own name. While his actions had been unexpected, rude, even, there was still the possibility her fire had been misplaced. She was too stubborn to acknowledge that, though. How dare this man who looked too much like her father say such things to her?


"Speech." | @Jarek