Gabbar
stallion . arabian . bay . 14.3hh . 6
He exhales slowly at her response. By choosing the flee a fight, she ensured the survival of multiple young, and her selflessness allowed them to flourish— perhaps. It seems a passive way to ensure a generation will grow old. The Arabians fight aggressively to ensure that the threat will not or cannot continue. That way they know they and their children are safe.
But, he reflects, a small smile crossing his face in response to the fine mare’s hopeful expression, It is not wise to fight a fight that will end in a major loss for your side. He nods his head to this, and resolves to cease assuming that the foreign cultures of the horses he has met are inferior to his. If a horse does what they can to survive, who is he to judge their methods of achieving such success? Gabbar is just a breeder, after all, and not a particularly notable one. He’d never been selected by any of the mares in his herd as worthy.
Perhaps that had been because of the volatile Iftikhar, though, and not through any real fault of his beyond having been birthed by the red mare. As if that was something he could have helped.
He blinks away his distracting thoughts and focuses on the face of his companion. Her name is smooth, soft. There are no hard consonants to spit through teeth, no vowels to squeeze over his tongue. He cannot imagine ever voicing her name with anger or spite, for the very nature of it calms and soothes the speaker. A’idah.
“Güzel,” he murmurs to himself, and freezes as her muzzle touches his. His nostrils flare and his breathing is uneven but he does not pull away, partly because he has been conditioned to expect violence should he act in a manner displeasing to a mare and partly because her breath is warm and soft and sweet against his skin and he longs for this, oh how he has longed for the touch of a mare— a touch that lingers, and a touch that he can trust to expect. A touch that he will not fear to reciprocate, in the future.
It is too much for him now. Gabbar jerks away and holds himself still again, ears pushed back and eyes closing halfway in anticipation of teeth against hide or a swift kick against the thick bones of his leg.
“My apologies, Bayan. A’idah.” His voice is hoarse, and he flounders for words. “I am... We do not... I must go!”
Gabbar wheels and takes off, fleeing down the beach as his heart pounds with more than exertion, and tries not to think of anything beyond the sand flying up from his hooves and the comfortingly consistent sound of the waves at his left. Almost, he succeeds.
Almost.
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