When his mother quietly accepts his suggestion and comes to join him beneath the relative dryness of the overhang, her dark body parting the curtain of dripping water briefly, Orhan turns to face her and begins working the tangles in the crest of her sodden mane with his teeth.
As he has got older and more independent, he has felt less and less inclined to touching and displays of affection with his dam. But today he is feeling differently. He wants to be close to her, to talk to her and be reassured that they are together as mother and son, and that nothing can part them. It's as if the lingering alien presence of Renaissance in the background has forced him to tighten his fortress walls, and if El Aran is to be safely behind them as well, she must be right beside him with her voice in his ear.
At her sharp remark, he pauses in his grooming to smile secretively at her shoulder. He is glad she does not like the painted stallion any more than he does; it makes him feel as if his opinion is more valid, somehow. "Maybe the desert is trying to drive him out," he replies casually, and spits out a stray mane hair that had got caught between his teeth. When she speaks again in a softer tone, he pulls away, stepping backwards through the damp sand, so that he can see her face.
"No," he tells her, and leans against the cool face of the rock wall to itch his side. "I'm sick of this humidity, though. My skin doesn't like it. Look." The colt turns at a forty-degree angle and gestures with his grey nose towards the patch of hairless grey scabs on his barrel. "It's got worse since yesterday. I'm starting to get worried I'm going to go bald all over." Ears flicking back, he watches his dam for a reaction with a frown wrinkling his face.
orhan
yearling; mutt; buckskin; 15'1hh wfg; shiva |