Common

It had been so long since the lean stallion had seen the Islands that he'd forgotten what it was like to shiver in the daytime. And while he would freely admit that autumn was more beautiful than he had remembered, he certainly did not miss the bitter cold. His limbs were still half-numb from the weight of his body, and his joints remained stiff from the long night on unforgiving ground. He may have only been three, but he felt like an old, decrepit man. I mean, he thought with a grimace, his gaze raking over his own slightly too-lean figure, I look the part.

And felt it, too… but he shied away from examining his feelings any deeper. The pain of waking without Eirlys or Anwen (or even Mahakali) lingered in his chest after the vivid dream he'd awoken from.

Movement from nearby jostled him out of his awkward grooming and he craned his head around to face the elegant mare as she approached. In a way, she almost reminded him of his mother in coloration, although their builds were vastly different.

Taurus stifles a frown, and opts to incline his head in greeting instead. Of course it would be a lady that found him first, and of course she had to find him before he'd even managed to make himself presentable. Goddamnit, he thought to himself, working to hastily affix a smile onto his mottled lips. It had been so long since he'd had to greet anyone new that forcing his lips into a rictus facsimile of a smile felt stiff and unnatural, but he tried anyway.

The brush of her mottled muzzle across his hip made him flinch in surprise, and he stared at her in shock, his slightly curled ears tipped back in disbelief. "Excuse me?" He blurted out before he could help himself, his tone apprehensive and a little bit alarmed. Since when did mares go around touching random strangers in the middle of fall? Much less ones that looked like they had crawled straight out of a mud pit.

And then he remembered where he was.

"Oh, um. Right." Still, he cannot help but draw back from the elegant mare slightly, his heart hammering in the narrow confines of his chest. He had expected someone to claim him, but he hadn't expected a woman, much less one this bold. Nor had anyone touched him like that since his time with the sweet little Princess.

Sucking in a ragged breath, he forced the smile back onto his lips and tried to pretend that his voice wasn't tight with unease. "Sorry. I forgot that's how things worked here." And then, with a slightly delayed extension of his lean neck, the young stallion offered his muzzle for an exchange of breaths if she were so inclined. "I'm Taurus."

Taurus stepped forward obligingly, and made an effort to maintain a small amount of distance between them. He'd never known a mare so bold about physical affection with a man she didn't know in the middle of autumn, and he wasn't quite sure how to adjust to her bold and unforgiving confidence. "Is it on Salem, then? Or Atlantis?"