fenris

The mare's hooves succeeded where her words had not. Though both sailed harmlessly past Fenris - he was missing half his sight, not half his wits, and knew better than to stand directly behind another - her open defiance could not be ignored as easily as her subtle disrespect. But he refused to allow the wretched woman the satisfaction of provoking him. And so the dark stallion acted as if he'd taken no notice of the attack - the left half of his face unreadable with its empty eye socket and ruin of scars, and the right equally impassive as its golden eye swept up and down the open expanse of shore where they stood.

They did not wait long for the russet lead to arrive, though the silence stretched each second into an eternity. Angling his single eye toward the stallion, Fenris sized the stranger up even as he spoke, confirming that the dark bay had come to the right place. Grai was of an equal height to the younger male - perhaps a couple inches taller, though the bachelor had not yet reached his full potential. But Fenris was thicker of both muscle and bone, and confident as only one who has never tasted the bitter dregs of defeat can manage. Had he only known what it was the Lagoon sought from this man, the young stallion would have taken it from him by force, and trades be damned.

Like his father before him, Fenris was a man of few words; he did not hasten to offer his own name in return for the red stallion's, and answered Grai's question with a simple nod of his heavy head. When he finally spoke a few heartbeats later, the words were without emotion or inflection - a speech recited from memory, and nothing more. "Felony sends his regards, and a reminder of the terms under which this trade was made. The Lagoon will not be forgetting what is owed, so see to it that you do not forget either."

That said, the dark colt turned to look at Eerika one last time, angling the ruined half of his face toward Grai in a subtle - and intentional - threat. "Now be a good dog and stay," he told her with the ghost of a smile on his lips. Thorn in his side that she had been, he couldn't say he would be sorry to leave the wretched woman behind. Let her vex someone else, and trouble the Lagoon no longer.

Perhaps Felony had made the right decision after all, Fenris thought as he turned back toward the sea, and home.

stallion / two / dark bay / friesian mix / 16 hh