VaLkA

mare / four / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Valka was aware, of course, of the rulers whose territories embraced the Bay. She knew that like her, the stallions made regular patrols of their borders - the scent trails that she often encountered on her own typically indicated that Bjorn and Solomon had been present within the past day or two. But the threads of fate had never quite aligned in such a way that the fluffy chestnut encountered either during her wanderings. If she had paused to consider the possibility of facing either king in this manner, the skjaldmær might have been grateful for her fortune. As it was, the thought had never crossed her mind until Solomon’s familiar scent grew stronger, and the sound of his voice caused her to jerk to a stiff halt.

A complicated tangle of emotions was quick to assert itself, and was ultimately the reason why Valka neither charged at the champagne stallion, nor returned to her circuit at a brisker pace. There was the familiar hatred, of course, for this creature who had attacked her ally within the boundaries of her own home. And a small, buried sense of admiration that he had somehow emerged victorious - a fact that was possibly owed to her own interference in said battle. Present, too, was an echo of the primal emotions that had led to their coupling - the heady combination of adrenaline and hormones that had formed such an effectively disorienting cocktail. And finally, a smug sense of vindication, that she had taken one of his ill-gotten prizes from him.

Of course, his presence here might easily indicate that he had come to reclaim said prize - a thought that overrode all other aspects of their complicated relationship. A thought that caused her dark brown eyes to narrow distrustfully, and her small hooves to shuffle her stout figure unconsciously between the stallion and the most direct path to the Bay’s herd. “Solomon,” she replied in a manner as stiff as the unspoken language of her body - a tone absent of the same warmth and ease with which the Cove king related to her. His relaxed manner was almost certainly a ruse intended to get Valka to let her own guard down, and she was determined that the tobiano would not be successful.

The Bay was hers to protect, and he had done enough to disturb its peace - and her own, more personal peace. Suddenly more conscious of the swell of her own belly and how ungainly it mate her feel, the Yakut shifted her stance again. “One wolf come here,” she replied after the silence became too heavy of a burden for her to bear any longer. This, at least, seemed a harmless enough topic - for what could Solomon gain from knowledge of the predator’s activities in her home? Unless he was trying to figure out if its defenders were weakened or injured, of course. “Lone wolf. Maybe pack drive out, not enough food. Weak from hunger, came close to herd. Dead wolf now.” Though Valka had been the first to scent the carnivore, she’d stood aside and let the Bay’s other protectors make the kill. As ungainly as she felt with the growing burden of her unborn foal, it had seemed the wisest course of action - even if it grated on the skjaldmær that she must rely on others to fight a battle that should have been her own.

“The wolf - he come from west, from Cove?” the furry mare asked suddenly, a question that seemed more rhetoric than anything. She had heard the cries of the pack echoing down from the mountains and across the relatively flat, open expanse of the Bay, and knew that they had been hunting in Solomon’s home. “Did herd of Solomon keep safe?” Her thoughts had returned to the two colts who had visited briefly before being ushered back home by the Yakutian mare. Of course, if either had fallen the golden stallion might not wish to share this truth - or his grief - with a woman who was more enemy than ally. But for the sake of her own peace, she needed to know that the children were safe, and well. It didn’t occur to Valka that the pack might have found an adult victim - as a general rule, predators preyed on the young and the weak, avoiding those creatures that could prove to be a true adversary.

Not unlike Solomon himself had behaved that day she'd witnessed his aggressive claim in the common. The memory of it pulled the corners of her lips downward, and strengthened measure of the mistrust that swirled in the depths of her deep brown eyes.