For a while, everything had been quiet. With the thawing of the forest and the slow start to spring, it seemed as though the others living in the forest were as hard to find as green grass so soon after the great thaw. It had taken a few weeks for the grass found in the small clearings of his home to become thick and lush enough to make a good meal, and it seemed as though shortly after that the inhabitants of the forest had started appearing from the shadows. He had yet to see the return of Nymeria and her children, or even see her sides swell as she grew large with his own child, and it seemed as though Therese and her strange, unfortunate child had disappeared.

Vercingetorix had begun to suspect that he was alone, until the sweet smell of salt permeated the air and he suspected that someone had decided to visit, trespass, or return to the forest. It takes a few moments of quiet pondering before the red stallion decides to follow the smell of salt, knowing that it would be best to run off any unwanted visitors before they found the hiding spots of his family.

Turning towards the thick of the forest, where the trees were a little closer knit, the smell of the sea only seemed to strengthen as he moved away from where the coastline lay, knowing that he must be on the same path as his visitor. Weaving through the small passageway in the forest, the red stallion finds it easier to navigate the wooded tunnel than the heavily pregnant mare that had passed before him, his own sides managing to stay free of the naked branches and the hungry thorns. Already, his thick winter coat had been picked away from his skin by the branches and rubbed off on sturdy trees that were best used for back scratching in the middle of the night, and so as he stumbles across the painted mare, he looks lean and smooth- just as he had when they had first met.

Before he has a chance to greet her, she calls out and starles a bird who, in turn, appeared to startle her. She jolts away, wide-eyed in comical terror for only a moment before taking a second to peer around, eyes eventually settling upon his coppery skin. Perhaps if Vercingetorix had eyebrows he would have lifted them to question her skittish behaviour, but instead he looks at her with his dark ears pushed forward and his nostrils flaring silently with each inward breath. She was in fact the lonely young mare that he had met and covered some months ago when the weather had been warmer and when he had managed to pry himself from the forest and abandon his paranoia. “Welcome back.” He greets her, dark eyes falling to her swollen sides and finding a sort of pride in knowing that she must have returned because she carried his child. “Did you go on an adventure?”

stallion, red dun, crossbreed, fifteen and one hands, russell.