Common

VaLkA

mare / four / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Though Valka strove to see and hear everything that was happening around her, her senses were quickly overwhelmed. A brief altercation nearby did draw the Yakut's attention, however, and she observed with surprise that the aggressor appeared to be one of her own gender. One rusty ear turned forward to catch the incomprehensible syllables that passed for speech in this land - words that sounded too soft, too delicate, even with the bite of anger behind them. The other ear pointed sideways, demonstrating the plucky chestnut's uncertainty. The combative mare did not appear to be polenitsa, but what other explanation could there be for her actions? A woman might be called upon to fight, but she did not choose her battles.

For this reason, Valka did not respond to the bite of her own species in kind, though the auburn mare's posture did stiffen, and her ears did bury themselves in the unruly tangles of her pale mane. The nip didn't hurt - it hadn't managed to penetrate the layer of fluffy, down-like hair beneath the longer guard hairs that formed the visible part of her coat - but Valka had been completely caught off guard by the gesture. So engrossed was she in the drama enfolding some distance away that she had not even heard the other creature's approach. Wheeling her figure 'round to face her new companion, the Yakut turned a baleful eye on him and froze - just as surprised by his appearance as he had been by hers, though perhaps less pleasantly so.

A boy. Was her fate truly to be governed by some skinny urchin who hadn't fully grown into his legs? The gods who lived here must mock her.

With a harsh exhalation of breath through her nostrils Valka expressed her thoughts of them as clearly as any epithet might have. The words that the self-proclaimed Prince spoke, on the other hand, were complete nonsense to her - Ironclad might as well have been bleating like a sheep for all that she managed to glean from his soliloquy. "Ya sleduyu?" the thick-coated mare questioned him, the moment of her speech seeming to linger for longer than it had any right to in the silence that followed. Shaking her copper-toned neck in frustration, Valka took one step forward, then another - closing the gap between her and the boy.

Immature though he might be, Ironclad did already tower over the Yakut mare - a fact Valka seemed blissfully unaware of as she approached him. No less could be expected of a polenitsa, who were hand-chosen for their fearlessness to defend their king. Had she been meeting the prince as a foe in battle, however, the daughter of Kresnik would have shown far less hesitation than she did in this moment. Taking another's life - or giving her own - were both tasks far more suited to her kind than attempting to restructure the foundation of her very existence with a stranger.

Especially when they shared no common grounds for communication.