Common

There is only one who came to seek her out this night, but that is unsurprising. It is late, and she is no meek or mild mare. Her honey-brown eyes are sharp enough to cut, and she does not smile. Not anymore.

The painted beast that approaches her is unfamiliar and does not tiptoe into her space with miladies and ma'ams, two attributes that have already earned him small tokens of favor. It is good, too, that he looks as feral as she feels these days, his body littered with more scars than she could ever hope to count and his thick, touseled mane and tail streaked with multi-colored hair. Despite his size, he is more sturdy than she is with her fine ankles and slender build, but it only adds to his appeal. He bears no resemblance to either man she has left behind, and for that alone, she could kiss him.

Switch does not answer his rumbled greeting, only watches - hawk-like - as he settles into her space and breathes his query into the still night air. A beat passes, their plumes of breath mingling in the space between before she answers, her thickly accented voice a subtle, sultry challenge that she does not bother to translate for him. "¿Lo soy?Am I?"

He answers his own question a moment later, perhaps having read the truth of her compliance in her lack of defiance, and her tail lashes (strands whisking faintly over the hard-packed snow). Dread and eagerness war for space in her belly, twisting and writhing with the guilt and longing she carried. Switch would never admit it - not even to herself - but she missed being wanted. She missed being desired. Being loved. Even if it was toxic, even if it was sporadic, even if it hurt as much as it healed. She missed it.

Mine, was hardly a declaration of love, but it was something more than the empty void her life had become.

She let his lips brush hers for a moment, the proud arch of her neck with its own thick waterfall of hair bowed tightly, before she lashed out at him, nipping at the dusky skin of his muzzle. Whether she made contact or not, she spun away from him with the nimbleness of a ballerina and took a few loping strides away with her tail lashing in mock anger, ears tilted back for him. If he drew near, her hinds would lift as though she were going to kick, but she did not seek to make contact with him again, only to warn him that he would have to earn the right to exist in her bubble. Even as she more or less obediently let him steer her toward whatever icy rock he deemed home.