Valentina stills as he circles her, keenly aware she was being watched, and in a way she hadn't experienced before. Daddy had always said she was pretty - "The prettiest?" she would ask, to Khajiit's smirking acquiescence - but this felt different. This has a weight to it, almost gravitational in how it pulls her towards him. It makes her feel so grown-up: like a mare, not a filly. Like she's standing on the precipice of something she can't quite put a name to yet, being lured closer and closer to the edge, and all she has to do is jump.

If she thought his eyes were heavy upon her, it is nothing compared to when he finally decides to come closer. Water swirls around legs from his approach, piquing her senses. When he settles alongside her, his masculine scent and radiating body heat passing in the small gap between them, she almost can't take it. His muscles are glistening beneath sleek, sun-dappled skin, and his smile feels like it's just for her, bringing a flush to her cheeks that not even the chilly spring water can stifle. Everything is going according to plan... and then he goes off-script, turning her question back on herself giving her pause without giving her what she'd asked for.

The young mare was used to getting what she wanted, even though the past few months had given her plenty of training in the opposite direction, and a childhood's worth of spoiling is not so easily unlearned. She tips one ear sideways, considering. Valentina isn't practiced in improv, but when has not being practiced at something ever stopped her from doing it?

"Oh, I don't know," she says, looking sidelong at him through slanted lids. "I might like the sound of that better.

And anyway," she adds breezily, flicking a little water towards him with her muzzle, "I asked you first."

Tina peers at him for another moment, tucking her white chin against her chest. Innocence incarnate, she plays up her patented puppy-dog eyes, checking all the while to see if it's working on him. "Why don't you tell me your name, extraño, and call me that again, just so I can make sure?"