Willfur
She doesn't answer his question, but maybe it's better that way, with the glimmer of unknown, untold things in her eyes, things that challenge and laugh and press too eagerly forward at the signs of distress in his. Daunted - as he probably should have been long ago - he looks away, pressing his lips firmly together to stop the flow of uncontrolled thought and emotion, but the sudden silence only serves to highlight just how much he's already spoken.
Embarrassment rises like embers catching to flame beneath the mules skin, evaporating all other emotions with its heat. He might have tried to excuse himself then, to escape the island and the crystals and the sense of being overwhelmed by it all, but again the unexpected touch of twisted bone, sheathed in magic and keratin, against his brow pins him in place, forcing his eyes up to meet the mares amethyst ones and his ears to listen.
She's making a point more than simply waxing philosophical, he thinks, as he's sure now, beyond any doubt, that the unicorn and her companion are both much more than they appear, capable of great and terrible things. He's struck again by how much like a child he must seem in comparison, agonizing over petty hypotheticals here, at the feet of fallen galaxies and in the company of powers incomprehensible, but since she's chosen thus far not to destroy him - even in spite of the temptation he can smell building among their mingled breath - he suspects that this confrontation is meant to ground him, to make him remind himself of what he holds true and right in this world, because who can convince us of any idea more resolutely than ourselves?
"Mercy." He breathes, not quite entirely sure whether he's answering one question or asking another, the pressure of Thana's horn no longer a bracing, supporting touch, but a force that threatens to topple the mule if left unrestrained, to pierce and to tear. He swallows, collecting his rattled thoughts. "Maybe I should be glad that those images affect me the way they do. Maybe it shows that I'm not that Willfur, that I won't ever be that Willfur, no matter how many opportunities present themselves." It's a comforting interpretation, at least.
Sighing, he leans away from the mare, one long ear folding flat to his neck as he tries, delicately, to extricate himself from her hold, the other turned warily toward her companion, whom he trusts much less, though equally as irrationally for how little he truly knows them. "I don't think I'd make a very good monster, anyway. I'm too squeamish, too sensitive, too self-conscious. I'd waste all day asking myself questions that no monster has ever spent time considering. Doesn't leave much time for monstering." A thin smile attempts to brighten his features, but it's not yet sure of itself and isn't able to reach all the way up to his eyes, which look tired now, and deeply set.
"talk talk talk"
@Thana
