here's a handshake, soldier,
'cause we both lost the war.
Svetlana can't help but smile whimsically as Blackmore compliments her. It wasn't often that she was complimented on her personality and not her outward appearance. In truth, she couldn't remember the last time someone had told her she wasn't half bad. More often than not, her sleek buckskin coat caught their attention and her bright amber eyes was what held them to her. Of course, it didn't help that she was "feisty", at least that's what they told her, and don't all stallions just "love a challenge". But Svetlana didn't look at herself as feisty, and she never played hard-to-get intentionally -- and the stallions that called her feisty just laughed it off when her unamused response was "no, you're just an asshole, and I'd rather eat my own leg before traveling anywhere with you."
When she was younger, her mama had always told her that the only man a girl can trust is her daddy. She'd learned differently. She'd left home in a flurry of angry words and never looked back - there hadn't been a pleasant conversation since then. Even the father of her only child had been iffy; their relationship a love/hate catastrophe that could have made history. Blackmore was the only lucky one she could remember.
If lucky is the right word.
She follows the giant stallion silently, a contented smile playing at her lips. She pays special attention to the wary way he carries himself down the slope and she copies him. She'd hate to stumble into the stallion and send her only almost-friend to the depths of the sea. Leaning back onto her strong hindquarters, the buckskin mare moves slowly and steadily. The earth beneath her is surprisingly stable - something she wouldn't expect for a cliff side - and soon the loam turns to wet sand and Svetlana cannot help but show her excitement in the way that she prances and tucks her head to her chest.
Her muscles tense and suddenly she's bounding across the short beach and into the water, her nostrils flaring with the scent of the salt on the wind. She lets out a loud squeal as she jumps further in, the cold ocean water lapping now at her underbelly, and sending her long tail into a fan across its rocking surface. After a moment she pivots, amber eyes finding Blackmore. She smiles at him. "Come join!"
S V E T L A N A
female ∙ buckskin ∙ the ridge |