***
The stink: that was what he remembered the most. The reek of musk and mud and sweat and shit was the constant companion to the lagoon, and one he had not missed when he'd left the place. Now, venturing back into its borders on a whim, he found that the odor was even more offensive than he had remembered, without the floral perfume of summertime to mask it.
He had not intended on returning. Yet here he was, and he could not seem to stop his hooves from carrying him further and further into his old home.
The burrs in his mane tickled his neck with each swing of his long stride, and his breath swirled upwards from his nostrils in delicate tendrils of condensation. Rook kept mainly to the old paths he'd travelled: the ones that snaked through the thicket of trees around the lagoon's edge. This time of year, the foliage was largely naked, and so it was without difficulty that he could see the tide was in, meaning he could not cut across the beach without swimming in the freezing water. Not that he had intended on doing so. As ever, Rook meant to keep to himself, and that meant keeping himself out of the public eye. At least there was no snow; the crunch of the wintertime substance would have been certain to draw unwanted attention.
He was just beginning to wonder if his nostalgic return had something to do with the unexpected reunion he'd had with his parents some weeks before when a glint of gold up ahead, out in the open on higher (and muddier) ground, caught his good eye. Instinctively he stopped in place and stared through the trees at the figure. He did not forget the women he mated with (most of the time), and he had not forgotten this one either. What is she doing here?
Frowning, he picked his way onwards and upwards, through the thicket and out into the open towards the palomino mare. Yet again, his feet had done his deciding for him. Normally his interest in women was limited to breeding season only.
"Well, well," he growled in a low voice as he strolled up to the much-smaller mare, hooves squelching in the cold mud. He looked down his nose at her with his head slightly angled so that he could regard her with his dark seeing eye, and took in the details of her face that he had been too busy to notice when they'd first met. In this lighting, she reminded him a little of Cersei: another mare he'd had some fun with some years before, right here in the lagoon.
"You lost or something? No other reason any mare in her right mind would come here." He did not smile, but on his dark lips there was the sort of tension that suggested he was suppressing a smirk.
DIAMANT
last son of het vuur and sterre |