Gabbar
stallion . arabian . bay . 14.3hh . 6
The stallion chuckles and makes a disparaging remark. Gabbar, not expecting the first half of such a response, relaxes momentarily and flips his ears to point them at the stranger standing on the edge of his territory. It is clear that the other male isn’t built for the pervasive heat of Salem, and the Arabian notes this as just one more reason why mixed breeds are inferior to Arabians and Akhal-Tekes. His eyes track a bead of sweat that runs down the buckskin’s face while the stranger continues to talk. He wonders how quickly Valve could shut the stallion up and send him galloping toward the beach, and, amused by this mental image, smiles to himself.
He does not have time to pursue the fantasy. As the buckskin utters a passive threat, one backed only by his own confidence, Gabbar snorts. He has never heard of whatever it is the stranger is talking about, but he is neither afraid of nor cowed by the buckskin’s verbal posturing. Words have always been empty threats. Gabbar would know: in the desert, words are used to buy time and to intimidate the weak. Action is much more decisive, and he gathers his weight under his hindquarters again. But he does not lunge. Not yet.
“Boyunca hareket, kurtçuk,” he says again, not deigning to speak in the common tongue for the mutt, and without any tonal inflection to indicate the insult. Gabbar strikes the sand in front of him with his socked foreleg in a gesture that can be understood regardless of what tongue each horse speaks.
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