She knows his name.
Delight shows in the sudden arch of his neck. “Yes,” he confirms, then extends his muzzle to her, exhaling light puffs to mingle breaths and show her that he is indeed the stallion she’s named. His heart pumps more powerfully knowing that Bozena remembers him. Is this fate? he wonders, not so much that he should come across her again but that they should cross paths at such a momentous turning point in his own life, right as the wheels turning in his head slip into a steady, cohesive rhythm to carry him down a clear road.
He wonders if she, too, is at a turning point in her life, and if that is the case he desires to know all that came before just as much as he wants to know all that she foresees ahead for herself. But these are topics with great depth, and unsuitable for a pair who are just getting reacquainted after having initially met for less than the span of an hour. Kendry must temper himself away from the false notion that he knows Bozena’s heart of hearts already simply because he desires to.
There is also the possibility that this is not a significant moment in Bozena’s life. Kendry doubts the probability of this, so self-assured that if such a thing is true his appearance will surely be the catalyst for it. This is not hubris or arrogance (though he is, by all accounts, a supremely self-confident stallion), but a deep belief in the connection he feels between them. Surely she must feel it too.
“Do you still defend the small?” he asks, thinking back to the day they met. Kendry cannot remember the name of the short mare who was unfortunate enough to trip where Psych could see her, can’t even recall if a round of introductions had been made. He remembers Bozena’s entrance, her fierce defense of a stranger, her competence and especially her confidence in carriage. Her scent, her voice, her name.
The intensity of his desire to be nearer to her does not surprise him, but neither does he allow it to overwhelm him. It rushes through his body and he stands firmly against it, focusing on the subtle flicker of memory behind the wave. He thinks of his slow spar with the restless Friesian in the falls and aches to engage in that dance with Bozena here, now, in an empty field doused in the soft light of the moon, knowing that such a dance will be all the more meaningful between them.
Kendry’s breathing is slow, controlled, but he watches Bozena intently for any signs that she is feeling the same things as him, that she has been turning the memory of their first meeting over and over within her mind and waiting for the day when they might see one another again, that his presence is as intoxicating to her as Bozena’s existence is to him.
He has no reason to believe, yet, that her heart is not reciprocal. |