Common

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

Valentina's ears swivel forward at the ire in his voice, savoring its gravelly tenor. His tail cracks against his hindquarters again, drawing her dark gaze, and clenches her jaw against the cheshire grin threatening to steal across her lips. He's pissed, she can tell, and the fact that it's all due to her is more satisfying than the first sip of water after a long drought. It's like she's bickering with Catalina again, except this time there are no parents around to quench the flames as she feeds them, no sharp-tongued Switch to drag them apart before things go too far. Khajiit might have been more lackadaisical in disciplining her - Valentina had been a daddy's girl, and as such, knew all the ways she could bend him to her will - but her mother was excellent at it, keeping a tight leash on the spitfire of a filly when her father was gone.

Only when the leash was off did she realize how hard she'd been pulling against it. And now that she was free, now that she was no longer tethered to her parents' heels, it felt like she was flying.

"I'm talking to you, handsome," Valentina retorts with more than a little sarcasm, punctuating her words with a few bats of her long lashes.

When she lunges for him, she manages to catch his crest between her teeth. The whitesplashed woman clamps down, trying to drag him to the earth like the child he so clearly still wants to be. She doesn't use the full force of her strength, having experienced only Catalina's slight build in scuffles, and expects the stallion to capitulate, to give in without any further issue now that he had been bested. But this man is not her sister, and he does not wait for her to release her hold on him, yanking himself and his thick, bi-colored mane out from under her by surprise. Tina turns away from him, attempting to dodge out of striking range - too late, though, as one of his hooves scrapes across her supple hindquarters on the way down, dirtying her fur and carving a shallow cut into her unmarred skin.

Her own squeal pulls from her throat, echoing out her displeasure across the yellowing grasses. His teeth flash in her peripheral vision, snapping at her like a wild dog, and she bucks, kicking out with her back legs in his direction. She swivels back to face him, her once-perked ears pinned flush against her poll, and snorts at the painted man again, blowing gusts of warm breath out in great bursts from her wide-flared nostrils.

"Have you learned your lesson yet?"

Valentina rolls her eyes, exaggerating her indifference to his over-the-top antics. "Oh, yes," she drawls, "I see now, you are very powerful and strong and capable, my mistake. Now if you're quite finished, carińo," she continues, "I have far more important things to do than participate in pissing contests with random strangers," and moves to push her way past him, using the stubborn lift of her white chin and the petulant flag of her long tail to cover the slight favoring of her bruised hind leg.