Do you like cigarettes, dominoes, rum?
She can tell that he’s holding back a chuckle, but she is oblivious to the nature of it; the fact that it would not have been an unkind chuckle misses her entirely, and sparks true rather than performative irritation. Her pale honey-gold eyes narrow at him, though by now he is once again vigilantly surveying the area. Had he been less pretty, she might have worked up the nerve to tell him to go away, but she is as attracted to him as she is frustrated by him, and the mixture is infuriatingly addictive.
His little speech only makes it worse. The fact that he is actually doing the gentlemanly thing by watching over her and has truly done nothing to incite her wrath somehow rubs Honey the wrong way. She lifts her chin and puffs out her chest, ears laying back against her sooty neck, though her display is a bit laughable considering how short she is in comparison to this handsome stranger.
“I prefer no attentions, thank you very much,” she says, but the reality of his words are beginning to sink in. She knows what the Commons are, and their dangers; how she has managed to end up here without truly realizing is an unfortunate mystery. She hadn’t cared very much about avoiding it until she was within it, and by now it’s too late.
Still, maybe she is lucky to have been found by possibly the only stallion apparently uninterested in taking her home. Honey eyes him warily, clamping her mouth shut to keep herself from any more inflammatory comments, because the truth is that part of her does not want him to leave.
“What is to the North, anyway?” she asks, almost dismissively, trying not to give away too much of her ignorance. She can feel his gaze on her fully now, and it both emboldens her and causes her to shrink just a bit into herself. She is not sure whether to hold onto her newfound anxiety and use it as a way to keep herself safe, or to throw caution to the wind and take her chances. She is still too young to have experienced much independence, or figured out what kind of bravery she may possess—or lack.
2 | sooty buckskin tobiano | 14.2hh | bacardi x soraya