Meadow

For once, it is not dislike that shapes the planes of her beautiful face at the sight of him, although he cannot say what replaces it. Her body is still tense as though she considered him a threat to her safety, and yet she stretches willingly toward him to exchange breath. She had won him over with the way her emotions danced through her eyes and the way she had never hesitated to show him what she truly thought. Not when she had scoffed at him in the Commons, nor when she had snarled at him in the Badlands. He thought of her often as his glass-faced girl, and yet her reaction leaves him baffled and momentarily off-kilter.

The brush of her soft muzzle does not help, and he cannot help the flash of curiosity that makes him wonder what it might be like to feel her lips on his skin elsewhere. Would it be as electric there as it was on his lips?

They both withdraw and he takes her teasing in good stride with a chuckle and a shake of his head, although he will never be one to agree with her on the matter of homes. Solomon has never been the type to enjoy the blistering heat of the southern islands, nor the sand that is forever getting into his eyes. There was a reason his trips there were few and far between. Even with the draw of Feray's presence to entice him, Solomon had never truly been comfortable on Salem. Tinuvel was likewise a land of hardy horses, but where the cold drew everyone together, the heat of Salem drove them apart. You had to be strong to survive the Cove, but each member of his herd helped one another in that regard by providing warmth or sharing resources.

When he turns back, he does not do so in time to see her thoughtful appraisal of him, but he doesn't need to. The simple fact that she was taking the time to have a conversation with him was evidence enough that she did not hate him, and if he were being honest, he was still a little thrown from the revelation. It gave him a sort of hope he hadn't entertained in some time, and despite the fact that she had just finished telling him how much she loved the Badlands, he had a brief glimpse of what her sleek spotted figure might look like against the earthy tones of the Cove.

The thought brings another grin to his lips and a softening to the corners of his emerald eyes. He knew that she did not yet see in him the same things he saw in her, but he saw the possibility of something new developing between them. Perhaps he had simply gone about it all wrong before. Maybe the secret wasn't in interfering with her affairs or trying to trick her into coming home with him. Perhaps the secret had always lain in simply spending time with her so that she might see him for what he was, and not what she feared him to be.

He sobers slightly at the warmth in her tone as she speaks of Roheryn, but he lets it go. Her love of the diminutive golden stallion had been more than apparent the night he'd tried to win her away, but what was more interesting was the wording she had used. 'Snuck away' implied hat Roheryn did not know of her whereabouts, nor then as logic followed, her intentions.

What were her intentions? She had come alone, unguarded, in the midst of the rut. Had she gotten so tired of Roheryn and his attention that she sought something else? Someone else? Someone like him?

Solomon is distracted by this line of thought by the way she ducks her head coquettishly and turns slightly, as though to leave him here wanting and hungry for more. From beneath the feminine fringe of her eyelashes she asks for him to join her on a walk and his conclusions jostle against each other in rapid, exciting new possibilities. He freezes for a moment that feels far longer than it truly is, his gaze searching her face for clues. None of what had transpired in the past few minutes had been anything like he had come to expect from her. Not the dancing or the smiling or the invitation. It was almost as if Feray was hiding some secret identical twin that he'd just never seen before.

That, or she was trying to make his brain short-circuit.

"Like I could turn you down," he jests softly after a moment's consideration, stepping forward in the path she'd indicated close enough that his whiskers trail across her shoulder casually as he turned to take his place at her side. In such close proximity, and with a mind derailed by (admittedly) slim possibilities, it is much harder to ignore her exquisite scent and the way that she is so close that he could easily reach across and trail his lips down the dark river of her mane, to bury his muzzle against her skin. It's certainly not the first time he's entertained such thoughts about Feray, but it is the first time he's been this close to her.

Reluctantly he tears his gaze from her figure to scout ahead, attempting to rein in the wayward direction of his thoughts before they can lead him down a darker path. "Fate seems to keep bringing us together," he says teasingly, winking at her as he paced along. "Maybe we should just stop fighting against it."

In truth, her proximity has momentarily disrupted all of his initial plans. He had planned to warn her of the dangers the Crossing posed nowadays with Cullen once again active and now armed with a legion of virtueless bachelors at his beck and call, and then leave once she'd chewed him out. But Feray's accommodating manner had derailed him far easier than he had realized was possible. There is a new nebulous possibility that hangs between them that he cannot quite describe. It's not quite friendship, not yet, but it is a great deal better than what had existed between them previously.

Still frazzled by her open demeanor and by the rather large distraction provided by her proximity, he finds himself at a loss for words. Solomon is by and large a creature of touch, more given to making his case through gentle caresses and light whispers. He doubts, however, that she will take kindly to him putting his muzzle on her before she welcomes it and thus keeps his distance, his mind spinning.

"Is this the first time you've been on the Crossing since Nzingha?" He finally manages to ask something, clawing gratefully for the first thing that comes to mind. Nzingha is shared history, and while it is not necessarily good history, it is something nonetheless. He is content with it, right up until he realizes that he's been reduced to the equivalent of 'do you come here often' by the glass-faced girl.

Solomon