Meadow

Minthe has extensive experience in carnal activities. She enjoys the pleasures of the flesh like any other horse with four legs and a pulse, but this - the rough slap of skin on skin, her sharp exhale as the wind’s knocked out of her lungs, the heat of their labored breaths and the taste of him as she tries to take a piece of his pelt for herself… this is a feeling she hasn’t indulged in for some time. It was easier when she lived in a herd; other mares annoyed her to no end, their foals even moreso, and scaling the rungs of power with petty squabbles was typically enough to scratch that itch. Sure, there were plenty of strangers on the Crossing, and she could have meted out her own punishment upon the skinny black ‘Teke, when he’d still tailed her, but why would she? Why would she risk scarring her pristine coat for nothing, no accolades, no results, no reason? Minthe is impulsive, but she’s still a mare of sense, and she typically knows how and when to choose her battles, physical or otherwise.

Unlucky for her, then, that the roan stallion manages to grasp her mane in his jaws, jerking her neck up and causing her to stumble a pace or two to the side. Her crest burns where some strands have been pulled out from the root, the rest of her body pulled on the tether of the spit-dampened crimson threads clutched between his teeth. Minthe screams, furious. In an instant the slender mare is throwing her weight into her narrow hooves, bouncing her body up in a crowhop to try and slam into the underside of his jaw. As silent as he’d been, he clearly didn’t need it - and in fact, given what he’d just done with it, didn’t deserve it, a consequence Minthe would happily bring to fruition.

Pain pulses from the sore spot on her neck to her rapid-beating heart. Her vision blurs at the edges, anger tinting everything in shades of red, but she can still catch pieces of him as he tries to slip by her. As if he can just do that. As if he hasn’t started something she won’t let him leave unfinished. As if he can act like that towards a mare - towards her, of all mares - and make his way out unscathed. He was the one who’d initially erred. It was his lack of attention that had brought him into her personal space. If the idea of that was so repulsive to him, he needed to be more aware of his goddamned surroundings.

Ire swells within her at his tacit dismissal, beating with both fists against her ribs. It pushes her into action, swings her hips so that she can kick with both hind legs at his torso as he passes. The moment her hooves reach solid ground, she’s turning, kicking up bits of grass and dirt in her haste to knock into him once more. She angles the straight lines of her body parallel to his, so near that the scarlet whip of her tail glances like stinging nettles across both of their hindquarters. “If you want me, baby,” she quips, heaving her weight sideways towards him, “you’ve got to try harder than that.” Her voice sits light in her throat, taut with barely-concealed hatred and gleefully mocking. Minthe knows he doesn’t want anything to do with her, wants nothing more than to leave her forgotten in his past and move on to whatever affairs pull him on his path due south, but she doesn’t give a damn what he wants. He is the unstoppable force to her immovable object, the only thing that matters, and she is nothing if not unforgettable.

Minthe snakes her head towards the old man’s withers, sinking her teeth as far into the skin as they’ll go and twisting.

Come hell or high water, he will remember her. She will make sure of that.