Common

He thought they’d softened toward him a little- enough to respond, at least- but at his motion they still jerked back as if from a blow, and he cursed himself, slowing his stiff motions and easing back another half-step. Gentleness had never been his forte. He had been forged roughly, treated roughly, lived roughly. He understood viscerally the importance of kindness and softness but the act of giving it was a vulnerability he recoiled from.

They struggled visibly with his questions, though, their brow furrowing deeply with the making of some decision they didn’t voice, their sunset stare flicking back to his face occasionally- what expression was he making? For that matter, what expression were they making..? Whatever it was, it was coalescing into something like frustrated resolve- they’d made their choice, however unhappy about it they might be. He hadn’t expected part of that choice to be reaching for him, and he froze except to carefully, slowly tilt his head to angle his good eye at them as they drew toward his throat. They opened their mouth- not to speak- and he tensed. (They’d break under his weight. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but it kept him still as a statue, rigid, as they fumbled near his throat with their bare teeth, straining not to bare his teeth back.) It wasn’t his flesh they caught at but his tangled mane, and he wasn’t sure why this didn’t ease his tension, until they backed up, still holding him, and the rope of his hair in their teeth went taut under his jaw- they let go immediately, retreating with all the expediency they’d lacked in coming close to him, but he was already a full body length away from them, his face stiff.

It took him a moment to speak- not because he lacked for things to say, but because they weren’t things to be aimed at this wounded little horse, and he was scraping through a heap of twitching gore and smouldering coals to find words that weren’t sharp, broken glass.

“…Guess you don’t talk,” he crackled at last, and it was meant to be a question, but it took all his effort to crunch down the jagged edges of his voice into something that wouldn’t cut. Another pause, shorter this time. “Humans, huh?” His face twitched, but he tightened it. He had the urge to step closer again; be intimate; be available, but his expression was none of those things, and he had a feeling that they might choose to run over let him near right now. He stayed still.

“There aren’t any. Here. I’da seen ’em by now.” The last was almost as much to himself as them, and he forced himself to relax, making perhaps too obvious a show of crooking a hoof under him, off balance- not ready for violence, he was saying to them. Not ready to defend himself, he was saying to himself.

“They can’t get you here.”