She presses herself to him like a cat, and Fell whickers in quiet surprise. Affectionate touch has become less of a rarity to him in adulthood, but he never fails to be a little taken aback by it; in part from being unaccustomed, in part from a distinct feeling of unworthiness. He wouldn’t want to curl around him like Mṛgaśira does, if he could exist in both roles; he would likely rather throttle himself.

But the snow and fire mare seems content to do the curling regardless of his own tangled feelings, and it feels too pleasant for him to push her away. The touch is like a flood, simultaneously unearthing his feelings of self-loathing like bones from a shallow grave, and filling a deep and hollow well inside of him. He knows it won’t last forever; the bones may bleach in the sun before he buries them again, and the well will eventually drain, but in the meantime, the strange and melancholy mixture is an acceptable deviation from the norm.

He returns the motions of grooming, twitching pleasurably as Mṛgaśira’s teeth scratch the hard-to-reach bow of his spine and the broad muscles of his back. He very nearly groans, golden eyes rolling slightly back beneath wilting lids. His own teeth scrape slightly less enthusiastically against the bloody red of Mṛgaśira’s back, but only because his muscles are suddenly disobedient and lethargic, and his mind seems to be having a hard time returning to earth.

When she pauses in her grooming, Fell picks up the slack, his focus returning a bit as the euphoria from having one’s back scratched slowly abates. He nibbles from her withers down her spine, along the far line of her shoulder, pressing into the muscles that connect to her ribs. He continues down to her elbow, past the roaned and bloodied edge of red and white, lightening his touch to a tickle.

He is perhaps more gentle than is strictly necessary; he would not have minded if Mrgy had put the full weight of her body behind the teeth pressed into him, but he is not quite so willing to reciprocate that much violence in a back rub, no matter how enticing it might seem to himself. She hasn’t exactly struck him as fragile since Raegar had tried to make off with her, but Fell is still somehow… afraid. The feeling is not unfamiliar. Like Maziel, Mṛgaśira is soft and quiet, and Fell can’t rid himself of the unreasonable worry that his harshness and loudness all on its own will somehow do damage to either mare.

This nagging fear is, unfortunately, at odds with the growing desire to hold tightly. As the white-red mare rests her delicate face against him, Fell caves to a small desire, and wraps his neck around her own. He tugs her close, shooing away the ferocity with which his body would prefer to touch. It’s not a negative thing, this ferocity; there is no anger or jealousy in it, no violence. It is just desire, so great that the weight of it makes delicate movement tricky, the way a too-heavy load makes one cumbersome and ungraceful.

But he is delicate all the same, or at least, he tries his best. Fell shoulders the weight with grim determination, unwilling to let it shove him down onto Mṛgaśira and cause her harm.

FELL

stallion. 16hh. black. marwari x. Rougaru x visurix.