As Orhan continued to stare at Vesti with an expression that was almost boyish in its incredulity, he could not help but marvel how easily the words came to her when, by comparison, he was a stuttering mess. She has had children before, he reminded himself, though it did little to soothe his nerves.
“No, it’s fine,” the stallion said, and took a moment to hang his head and close his eyes. He remembered what he had said to El Aran during their confrontation not so long ago: ”And if, someday... I was to have children of my own...”
Back then, ‘someday’ had seemed so far away.
His eyes opened, and found Vesti again. His gut twisted to see her standing there hopefully, waiting for his response. I am not ready, his gut told him, I am still half a boy. But his tongue refused to move when he thought of saying those words to her. After all she had been through – after the loss of her son – how could he tell her ‘no’?
Finally he inhaled a deep, decisive breath and stood a little straighter. “Can I... think about it? We... we still have time, don’t we?” Orhan’s hormones had always been remarkably unmoved by the changing of the seasons – possibly because, in the desert, there effectively were no seasons – but he sensed instinctively that now was not quite the time for breeding anyway. Evidently Vesti had decided to do just that: give him time.
He would need it.
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