sable
At his initial question, Sable shook her head and attempted a polite smile, despite the pang of worry in her belly. He had not offered his own name, or even asked who she was or why she was here, yet already this stranger was asking her casual questions about her life. She did not have enough experience to know whether this was standard, or whether his friendliness came from an honest place; she could only recall her sister’s repeated warnings throughout her young life:
Stay away from men, Sable; she had always begun, Their bits do all their thinking, and not in a good way. Some will straight-out hurt you with teeth and hooves, as you know, but some have subtler ways of doing it. First they’ll draw you in with nectar-sweet words and promises, then they’ll get what they want, and they’ll drop you like a new foal to go looking for their next scam. Roslin had always bragged about being able to tell when a stallion was trying to ‘scam’ her, but on their travels Sable had never gotten close enough to one to find out if she could as well.
Look at me now, sis, the young mare thought with mixed emotions as she held the stallion’s dark gaze. She wished there was some magical way to see beyond that veil, to reach inside another’s mind and feel was was lurking there, so she might know whether she was making a mistake or not.
“I can’t say I have,” she finally replied. They’d passed a desert once – a vast, pale thing beautiful and eerie to behold – but Roslin had steered them along its outskirts, muttering something about ‘devil-sands’. “Please,” she added in agreement, though her stomach still twisted with uncertainty. Should I be agreeing to this? What if he leads me somewhere bad? “But first, um, do you have a name?” Somehow, knowing that might make her feel a bit safer.
{15'2 smoky seal brown mutt}
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