He tenses instinctively when she closes the space between them; knowing how fiesty Winter can be, he fully expects her to bite him. And indeed, her teeth meet his skin, but there is no pain. Solgar relaxes slightly when he realizes she is only grooming him. While he appreciates the gesture, he is unused to sharing such an intimate physical act with a mare, and so when she invades his personal space further by resting her head on his withers, he can't help it: he moves away, ears pinned against his crest.
There's a split second of irritation that he catches on her face, which tells him he'd just made a mistake, but it had possibly been for the best anyway: he hardly needs another reason to excite his libido to breaking point.
He snorts at her comment. "If you're old, then I'm ancient," he retorts, cocking a hind hoof. In truth, he is in his prime: never mind the fact that most wild horses rarely live past the age of fifteen or so, and never mind the fact that he feels much older. Considering he is only just settling down to start a normal life, though, he doesn't feel he has much more life experience than any of the other inlet herd members. It's all a giant paradox.
He doesn't believe her when she says she doesn't like foals, but that's another story.
His ears pin back at the word 'dumb', and his black lips tug downwards in a frown as she continues on with a suggestion that makes him... uncomfortable, to say the least. "No, what would be 'dumb' is if I forced you to look elsewhere for your baby daddy. You'd still pop a child out for me to keep an eye on eventually; the only difference would be that it didn't have my blood. How would that be better, exactly? Does it look like I've bonded with the two little brats running around here?" He steps closer to her, dark eyes glinting. To his surprise, he is genuinely upset, even if she is just joking. Up until now, he hadn't been sure at all how he felt about such an issue. Now I know.
He reaches to speak directly in her ear, his voice all but a growl. "If you want one, I will give you one. If you want someone else's, you can leave." He looks away, swallowing against a lump in his throat and realizing for the first time just how much he actually likes Winter and how much he doesn't want her to leave.
Not that I've made it obvious or anything.
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