cinnamon

Cinnamon had met Goose for only a few brief moments, but he still recognized the painted stallion when he met with them in the woods. They had not gotten far into the territory; Goose must have been patrolling, or was perhaps expecting them. Or was he looking for Liland as well?

The buckskin introduced himself, and said he had not caught the red stallion’s name before. "My name is Cinnamon," he said with a friendly nod of his head. "I know we only met very briefly. I didn’t stay for the whole meeting," he admitted with a guilty smile, then turned and bobbed his head in Zharko’s direction as the yearling introduced himself. He didn’t offer his relationship with the boy to the lead stallion of the Bay, and if he asked, Cinn would leave it up to Zharko to share as much or as little as he wanted. They listened as Goose described the strangeness surrounding the Bay lately, and that he suspected Liland had left. "I didn’t smell any of his markers when I got here," Cinn confirmed. "Do you know where he might have gone?"

It seemed Goose did not know where Liland had gone; the small stallion had simply disappeared. "What about his family? Didn’t he have kids and grandkids here with him?" Cinn asked. It was truly strange for the Bay leader to vanish without a trace or a warning. He wondered if maybe the Tinuvel wolves had gotten him, though that seemed unlikely; the island, so far as Cinnamon had seen, was bustling with enough horses that wolves should have been discouraged from hunting any of them. Besides, there were plenty of elk that shared the wintry lands with the herds. A fluffy little stallion and his family should not seem tempting to wolves.

Cinnamon glanced down at Zharko at his side, then back to Goose. "I don’t know if Liland discussed anything about me with you, but my deal with Liland was that I would live here in exchange for my efforts to protect the herd. Is that still okay? He said Zharko was allowed to stay with me." That last part was a stretch; he had mentioned Zharko to Liland in the conversation, but the stallion had actually said nothing about the colt staying with him. He hoped that just meant he didn’t care, as he had not outright told him no.

stallion // 16hh // EE A+a nSty // of the Bay

she marks her fingerprints
in my skin
i breathe her perfume in
and it burns like heroin
now she's in me
and i can't let her go