Meadow

He was always going to be a product of his homeland, some part of him always yearning to protect those who had not been trained as he had been -- it had been his calling for seven some-odd years, after all. He knew, by her honesty and word combined, that she knew herself capable - he knew by the life of her son that she had proven it. He knew these things and believed in them wholly, but logic was not coming past the great wall of admiration and yearning and home he felt in the presence of her dismissive son and her feisty self.

So day by day he took his ‘walks’, fought the fights and sent challengers running, trying to keep her safe from the incessant peckings of life -- after all, it meant that if he was in fact defeated, she at least could have an easier time with the aggressor when it happened upon them afterwards. Anything to spare the wildly capable mare that had become a staple of his life here.

He stutters because he did not doubt she had teeth and hooves enough for him, that she’d seen he’d been doing what she said she was capable of. He knew a mare of his home who found out they’d been ‘kept safe’ would be furious at the presumption - and he’d prepared himself to take an additional beating for that insolence. He tells her he does not go hunting down trouble, though he knows some days he did for the sake of keeping himself sharp, but she accepts this from him and his ears flick both ways, exchanging directions in his uncomfortable state.

She nods at last, and it feels like a knot in his throat is finally loosened, though he dares not use that freedom to speak yet. Her angled body further soothes him and at last his ears prick forward, stiff and keen to find what words she might offer him in realization of his latest escapades on her behalf. It had not been immediate punishment, and for that-- the unfortunate spark of hope rears its head. Despite knowing that she could not be bothered to have him, he feels the little flicker of flame in the torch he held for her grow by two or three tongues more.

He bows his head again, posture curling him down to appear as small as his bulk might allow, stepping a little closer to her to extend his nose and flush a breath across her withers. "Pardon my presumptiveness, Ylva, I had not meant to--."

"Errant, when we first met, you told me how you searched for a new calling: for someone to protect. You told me how dangerous it was for a mother and young child to be alone, and when I insisted we were perfectly safe, you did not bring up the matter again. Yet…" He flicks his gaze away, guilty that she had pointed out just how presumptuous he had been indeed, but he still cannot bring himself to speak for the shame of it. "All this time later, here you are still. Am I wrong to assume that you have quietly found your calling... here, with us?"

The light golden sheen of the sunlight in her eyes stills him for a few moments more, savoring the sight of her because he cannot tell if he should have the honor again. "You are never wrong, Lady," he answers, knowing the coy answer is too full of his hope to sound as deferential as he had wanted it to. His attempt to begin to distance himself, using his more common Lady instead of Ylva, made more plain due to the recent use of her name prior. He does not know what to expect, "You have been more than a simple calling," he all but whispers, low enough to allow ignorance to be real or played.