He is just a boy, she thinks, when she looks at the way he drunkenly lolls his head, but she knows of course that even boys drink young, and when she looks on him she knows he is at the cusp of manhood. Little has changed since last they met, at least that she can see; that his frame is more filled in or that he is perhaps a bit taller are given, but not compared. She wouldn’t know. She hadn’t looked, last time. She was just a girl, when she was chosen for Orestes. Not a woman, capable of choice, but a girl, easily swayed and, anyway, the decision had never been hers to make. Not really.
So when he laughs at her foul mood, Saphira only huffs and looks away, only just returned to the moment.
”...What would make it a good one to you?”
The night-black mare stares at him, piercing, icicle-blade, eternal tundra. Her eyes flick back to the grass and immediately a few blades collapse as salt. She almost felt it coming, that time. For a while, she watches the tiny grains fall down the hill of white, until all of them are still in death. She does not look back up at the boy. ”I don’t know,” she says. ”I’ve never been happy.” That isn’t what he asked, but it’s too late now, so she just closes her eyes and lays her head in the grass and salt.
Speech, @Caspian
