she was born and taught to roar.
In her youth, the buckskin mare had taught herself to be sneaky. Life had been much more interesting when she could find moments for herself, when she could venture from beneath the watchful and wary eyes of her parents. Eventually, her disappearing act had transferred into her everyday life and since then, it was far too often that Leopard startled those she attempted to approach for conversation. Assuming she, ever the introvert, was interested in starting a conversation, of course.
An embarrassed sigh escapes the buckskin’s lips when Rhaego shies away and she opens her mouth to apologize before she realizes the stallion has begun to chuckle at his own lapse in attention. Her lips twitch into a sheepish smile before she turns her amber eyes away from her King and to the ocean that roils tumultuously before them. Her jest seems to sit nicely with Rhaego, who affords her the same sort of response, and Leopard is momentarily at a loss for words. There was a grain of truth in the stallion’s inquiry -- would she have agreed to remained with him, had he ventured constantly between the common grounds? Leopard was well aware that, no, she would not have stayed with the buckskin, despite his charm. Their relationship would have continued on as an odd sort of acquaintanceship with occasional conversations and glances, and much more common hiding and avoiding on her part; not that she would have meant any offense to the stallion. It was her curse, really, that she hadn’t developed true social skills as a foal.
“I admire the steps you took to get me to live with you, then, Rhaego.” She peeks at him from the corner of her eye and, finding that he is looking back at her, turns her head and neck away from him swiftly. It was difficult enough to maintain such a close distance between herself and the stallion, considering the plethora of alone time she had grown used to over the last few months, let alone maintain eye contact with him. She clears her throat in the awkward silence and drops her ruse of pretending to stare at something much more interesting on the horizon before forcing herself to turn her gaze back to Rhaego. “My mother used to say the same thing to me each time I wanted something to work to my advantage - ‘go boldly, and great forces will come to your aid.’” She pauses and smiles briefly at the stallion whose coat matches her’s almost perfectly. “Perhaps I can be smug and say that you went boldly, and now I am that great force.”
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