Atop a tiny mound betwixt three trees, El Toro surveyed the land. It was flat. Not as flat as the desert - though much of that was adorned with dunes - but still, very, very flat. Compared to his usual grounds, it was more exciting, with growing things and animals that weren't scorpions, and in the shade of the rare trees the autumn wind sent a chill down his spine. A bed of evergreen needles made a blanket at his feet, albeit an itchy one he would not lie upon. This pause in movement was a brief respite, but a standing one, and Toro was ready to be on the move again. He appreciated the coolness of the air, far different from Solterra despite being only at its border, and the morning sun did not make his jewelry sear against his skin. The next time he took it off he would have to check for filigreed burns.
Slowly, the white stallion descended the shaded pine-hill, pausing only when a whiff of the air put him on alert. His pristine ears swiveled as his eyes scanned the plains. There. Brown lumps against the horizon were coming forward, slowly, making their way across the grazing land in the chill of half-risen sun. He wasn't quite certain what these beasts were called - they weren't present in his homeland, and certainly not Solterra - but they were bigger and louder than he was, and for all the fight he had in his bones he would not dare to anger such a creature. If he kept his distance, they would leave him be, and that was all he desired.
I'll be a stone, I'll be the hunter,
The tower that casts a shade
***
Raymond knew enough of bison to give them a wide berth, however well-armed he happened to be. At their core they simply wanted to be left the hell alone to do whatever it is that bison do in their spare time, which was definitely a way of life the red stallion could get behind. He, too, was happiest when he could eat and shit his way across a field like a big brown lawnmower.
In fact, he had spent his morning in just such a way, grazing contentedly as nature intended, setting aside the storm clouds looming on the horizon of his thoughts just for a few hours. The buffalo, while neither conversational nor at all interested in allowing him near enough for 'companionship', were serviceable if panicky lookouts for the occasion.
One of the Buffalo lowed, shaking its head toward the tree line with a cautious snort. Raymond followed the line of its warning to behold another stallion, stark white against the trees and golden grasses, and tilted his head curiously.
The stranger's opinion of bison seemed to be one primarily of unease. He didn't seem to see Raymond yet - perhaps the beasts were a bit too much of a draw - and Raymond took full advantage of his distraction to slip near enough toward his side to hold a conversation at a reasonable volume.
"They won't bother you if you stay out of their way," he said with a tinge of mild amusement that hadn't quite worked its way into the contours of his face. "I'm Raymond, by the way."
***
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
Toro started at the voice in his ear, whipping around to see the red stallion nearby. His hair was on end and his tails slapped against his pink, sun-burned sides, but he said nothing, momentarily both shocked and indignant at being caught off-guard. His reddened nose twitched sideways as he looked Raymond over. Shorter than himself, but probably more muscular and vaguely catlike and sinuous. His color would have blended into the autumn shades had it not been so intense, and for that Toro was annoyed - he should've seen this man a mile away. A pale hoof picked up off the ground and was set back down without a stomp, only a shuffle against the grasses in muted irritation. "Toro." He spoke curtly.
He huffed an exhale, quietly, turning his head back to the strange animals. Toro tilted his head so his eye was just barely on Raymond. "You know what these are?" He wanted to add a "I'm not from around here," as a matter of pride, but found his jaw tightened shut. The white stallion shivered as a breeze slithered across his back, the rising sun still left them in the cool autumn shadows. He reckoned the animals below were doing better, seeming to be all fat and fur. They were stronger for it, he supposed, but the stranger beside him practically emanated a strength Toro did not believe he himself had. Comparing his horns to those creatures would do nothing for his self-image, nor would it improve his own condition.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
"Bison," Raymond replied without fanfare. "Where I grew up, they were all over the place." In a sentence, the red stallion both acknowledged El Toro's unspoken admission of foreignness and dismissed it as irrelevant by citing his own shared experience.
Strange, perhaps, to think of himself as having once been anything less than himself. His childhood had been reduced and condensed into a collection of stories for which no physical frame of reference yet survived to verify them. Reality loves irony: by the inexorable march of time, Raymond's life had transformed into an idea as nebulous as any religion.
But we were talking about bison.
Raymond didn't dwell on having startled the pale stranger. Humiliation was a tactic best saved for the proper target and the proper moment - this was not one. "Give them them their space and they'll ignore you. You're no threat to them." The thought comforted Raymond even by simply saying it, the way the realization of his own insignificance next to the show-grinding wheel of reality once set him free. There is strength in insignificance, given the right mindset and the confidence to accept it.
As good as his word, he turned his back on the slow shuffling mass of brown fur and bristling horns. "Been here long?"
Ah. So he was a foreigner, too. It was small comfort to Toro that Raymond was from elsewhere. He knew what the bison were. An insignificant question still left his chest tight with the embarassment of ignorance. He'd left the place he knew in order to find somewhere he would feel better, but in doing so had landed himself somewhere entirely unfamiliar. He had to either ask every question that came to his mind or find out the hard way. He didn't like it.
"Give them their space and they'll ignore you. You're no threat to them." The unfamiliarity of the bison left him tense, no matter what the stranger could've said. He'd exchanged constant self-hatred for constant discomfort (with a side of self-hatred). Toro wasn't sure it was in him to do better. "Been here long?" He didn't know. If he had been he'd probably know what a bison was. "Uh, no. Not really. Maybe half a year." He tried to think back on the season, the land, something - to no avail. He was distracted by another thought, that of the stallion's form. His eyes traveled Raymond's tail to the blade at the tip. It looked like it could split flesh with a tap. Come to think of it, the red stallion looked built for it - his body was hard and muscles defined, and, if he'd learned anything, size wasn't everything; he reckoned Raymond could take down someone Toro's size or larger. Probably. He lingered again on the bladed tail, it spoke volumes of the reason for his birth, if not his purpose. Not looking up to Raymond's face, he asked, "Is that your weapon of choice?"
Raymond had shed any inclination toward self-consciousness a long time ago, when he discovered one day that most people are too busy panicking about themselves to actually remember him doing anything stupid. That revelation had liberated him to pursue a lifetime of silly side quests and ask whatever questions his curiosity dictated without fear of reproach.
If he could bottle that up and sell it, his piles of gold would have their own piles of gold to sleep on.
Then commenced the standard moment of appraisal for new acquaintances, that notable instant when their eye caught sight of that which he made no attempt to hide. If custom had not bored into his head the idea that a hidden blade was an untrustworthy one, he might have carried it differently to spare himself That Look.
Is that your weapon of choice?
When Toro's gaze lingered upon the blade to the point of distraction, the red stallion swished it away in a slow and fluid arc, huffing his amusement. "I don't know that I'd call it a weapon of choice, but it's certainly an excellent Plan B."
Rendari were certainly warlike, but considering the potency of their hardware the vast majority of them preferred diplomacy to warfare. Knowing how to wield the blade was a requirement, but knowing how to eliminate the need to use it was a sign of real power, and butcher kings and queens were not allowed to run wild for long.
"You looking for combat training?"
Raymond. "he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
His glittering eyes followed the blade, slicing the air in a graceful motion. Grace was one of the few things Toro could recognize was his; he knew long legs and airy movements were not possessed by many and he held them close to his heart. If he could not be victorious, he would walk away like a slow dancer. He had other assets, he knew - his father was proud of Toro's horns, curving into points of bone that could gore a man if needed - if they were ever used for such a thing. The pegasi would use their wings against him. He never used his horns. He would win with a disadvantage or he wouldn't win at all.
"I don't know that I'd call it a weapon of choice, but it's certainly an excellent Plan B." Toro briefly wondered if Raymond was of a similar ilk, foregoing the use of his sharpest points for even or tilted ground, but doubted it; he could not see this stallion's confidence resting in the use of a sharpened tail. But perhaps, if he stood on weak foundation. He wouldn't want Raymond asking the question of him, so he didn't speak at all.
"You looking for combat training?" Toro narrowed his gaze. "Do I look like I need it?" His tone went sour fast. An interest in bladed tails was no invitation for instruction. Unsolicited. And it suggested such- "Unless you're interested in showing me Plan B."
Raymond wasn't opposed to a pitched battle. Certainly he preferred a fair fight, or for the battle to be pitched in his favor, but he was firmly of the belief that he could find his way out of any tight spot he wiggled into, and thus far he'd been proven right.
Certainly managing expectations and contingencies went a long way in helping that.
Toro seemed to take mild offense to the direction their conversation turned. The red stallion might have felt guilty about it, were it not for the lingering looks at his blade and his body the way an eager jock might get the measure of the new guy before deciding whether to heckle him in the parking lot after class. One doesn't normally spend too long staring at the big iron on a ranger's hip unless one is concerned about the big iron being pointed at them.
He laughed, the insistence of his good mood in stark contrast with the barbs bristling from the white stallion's words. Perhaps that was answer enough for Toro's rhetorical, nearly-accusatory question. Did he look like he needed it? Well, a red horse in a yellow field full of big brown bovines had managed to catch him unawares, which was not exactly the greatest showcase of his mettle. But then maybe that was a fluke, the one chance in a thousand that such a surprise could be had.
But, now that a good fight was on the table, Raymond was just cheeky enough not to want to deescalate the situation.
"I'm all for it, if you are. I'd hate to dissapoint. Although..." he wrinkled his nose in the direction of the bison grazing nearby, "we might want to take the party elsewhere, for their sake."
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Toro's mouth twitched when Raymond laughed, tails slapping against his flank. He wasn't here to be taunted. Why did it always happen? It certainly wasn't his fault...right? His tails lashed against him, stinging his flank with the force. It drew him from his thoughts. He eyed Raymond in silence. "I'm all for it, if you are. I'd hate to disappoint. Although...we might want to take the party elsewhere, for their sake."
The pale stallion snorted, looking across the plains at the bison. "For our sake, too." Toro didn't fancy getting gored. He was riled up enough now to fight nearly anyone that offered, but the pang of envy in his chest made him want to fight Raymond - maybe even with the horns. It mostly depended on if Raymond used his tail. Every insult, real or imagined, every time he felt inferior...He hadn't come here to feel that way again. He hadn't. But here he was. Again. He looked back to his new opponent. "You lead, I'll follow."For now. He followed Raymond to the battleground.
