what we do in life echoes in eternity.
The Gladiator isn’t always the best at timely introductions. He makes his way across the sand as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, and it sets him at ease. His eyes are bright, though. He’s alive and awake, alert and enthusiastic. Summer has just come in on his heels, and it’s an interesting time. He’s thankful that he’s found the oases in his homeland. There’s nothing about The Gladiator that enjoys a mouthful of sand. No one would, to be perfectly honest. It doesn’t have the best taste. In fact, it’s rather foul. Foul doesn’t suit him so well.
But he’d been eating when the scent of the man had reached him. There was enough time between the finished mouthful and the start of moving to lean his head down and take a long drink of the cool water that flows from the odd little spring that made this place so particularly habitable. It was delicious, and it was a long drink. The day was a hot one, especially for the man in black. Heat was absorbed right to his bones, or so it felt. He felt a lot of things as they landed on his coat and seemed to simply roll of. The sun though, that he absorbed.
The man moves to the borders, and by the time the oddly flashy stallion came into view there’s a young man in his presence. The Gladiator draws closer, head cocking to the side. He’s a strange, shifting young man. It brings a soft smile to his face… gentle. That’s how big he’d be by now… he pushed the thought from his head. That wasn’t a thought for a public place. The black stallion would push the idea away. Sure, his son was worth missing, but he didn’t want the image in his head when he was supposed to be doing business. Business was always so… messy anyway.
Sun hot on his back, the man allows his lips to part and himself to answer once more. “He’s right, of course.” There’s trust in children. The Gladiator has no way of knowing where this child has come from exactly, but he seems like he belongs here. The buckskin child is a part of the landscape as he is, as El Aran is, as anyone else who will drop in will be. He watches the young man, slipping to the edge of his pacing track. There’s a protective glint in the large stallion’s eyes, ready to spring if he needs to. Then again, he’ll only spring if he needs to.
A breeze cracks the stagnant heat. The Gladiator speaks evenly, eyes on the flashing coat of the man that stands before him. They hold a certain degree of amusement… a man this large in a land this hot is strange to see. They’re more suited to the cold, he would think. Then again, there’s the large man with the black coat that he happens to be—a couple of misfits, he supposes. At least the Spanish blood in his veins is relatively warm. “I’m The Gladiator, by the way. What’s your business, stranger?” His words are directed at the man, but his eyes are gentle when directed at the child. Curios… always.
THE GLADIATOR
stallion. ten. black. andalusian. |