Common

Valentina is floating through the Commons, mostly minding her own business, when she feels a sudden pinch at her shoulder, the press of teeth stinging her dark skin. "”æQué cońo?!" she exclaims, her attention shifted abruptly from the distant strangers upon which she'd been eavesdropping and onto the patchwork creature now hissing reprimands in her direction. As if she was the problem here, when all she was trying to do was get off this big stupid island and get back to the home she never should have left in the first place. The mare pins her ears, annoyed, and blows a sharp snort in his direction, following the beat of his hooves with a retaliatory kick of her nearest hind leg. This idiot was speaking to her like she was a little filly again, acting as if she needed a lesson in manners.

Well, she was a grown woman now, no matter what her older half-siblings said. The only horse allowed to chastise her was her mother, and Switch was nowhere to be seen. If this stallion thought he could stand in her place, he was wrong. Handsome - but very, very wrong.

"You watch it, dumbass," Valentina spits, venom in her throat. "I was here first." It sounds like she's bickering with Cat again, nitpicking whose fault it was for the latest bit of mischief they'd both willingly partaken in, and the petulance in her voice rankles her further, pulling her white-dipped ears back against her skull. She doesn't want to be reminded of her older sister right now, doesn't want to think about their constant competition, Valentina's eternal struggle to measure up against her and Catalina's countless victories. This is her time, her life, her story, goddamn it, and she won't let the frosted mare surpass her yet again when she isn't even here. Cat can't take something from her if she doesn't know she has it, and she decides in this moment that this man is hers, and nobody else's, until she decides to let him go.

"Since your mama clearly didn't teach you any manners," she says, advancing like a panther towards him, "let me help you out: you're supposed," a small step closer, "to watch," a flash of her teeth, "where you're going," and punctuates her words with a leap forward and up, aiming to grab his crest between her jaws and hold him punishingly down. It doesn't matter if he's older than her, or stronger, or more experienced; somewhere along the way, he seems to have lost his home training, and even if every inch of him screams stallion, he's acting like a colt. Valentina will treat him as such - and gladly, if it stops the rush of hormones from flooding her system, obscuring her original path to Salem in favor of darker, more carnal pursuits.