she may have regretted approaching him if she hadn’t been so drunk with the bitterness he had referred to… normally she was perfectly…happy? content, rather.. with being left alone. the problem though, was that the worse she felt, the larger her “bubble” became… the more sensitive she felt to those in proximity to her… and while he hadn’t approached her, hadn’t bothered her in any way, just his presence within a few yards of the painted mare was enough to cause a ripple of disturbance in her atmosphere that she couldn’t help but react to. it is the memory of those few brief minutes at the falls, the idea that she had been so vulnerable, that has her writhing with this horrible sensitivity. though she knew she was better off alone, she couldn’t help thinking of the stranger asche and the way he had exposed a soft fleshy piece of her soul, a piece that was horrifyingly susceptible to all the terrible poisons of the world… she remembers how close she had come to just relaxing in his presence and part of her blames it on the hypnotic quality of the waterfall but she knows, deep in her black heart, that it was just weakness. dredge raises her head, glowering with mismatched eyes at the dun. she is about to reply to his comment… something about how she would be saving her energy to step over his rotting corpse come spring, when her wrathful inner monologue is interrupted. the painted colt comes waltzing in like a daydream, the very picture of arrogant youth, and his chuckle causes her skin to quiver anew with irritation. it is all she can do not to roll her eyes at his question… what would a suckling babe like him do with such information? ”not here.” dredge spits the words out at nearly the same time as the red stallion some feet away…she issues a snort of annoyance at the way their words had tangled together. the mare waits a long moment then, swatting her tail against her hocks, to be sure he is done with his introduction before letting her own name fall flatly from her dark lips. ”dredge… ” |