Khoshekh waits patiently as Charmeine gathers her thoughts. He feels awkward standing there, trying to decide if it is worse to watch her as she thinks, or to look away. He ends up gazing at her as he tries to decide, not realizing how naturally his soft brown gaze rests on her pale face. Kho’s eyes trace the contours of her cheekbones, her white eyelashes, her pink lips. His gaze is absent-minded and gentle, brows furrowed with patient concern; but he is still embarrassed when he realizes he had been staring.

She shakes her head and looks up, and Khoshekh quickly glances away, guilty not at being caught (he isn’t even sure she noticed) but at allowing his feelings to get too comfortable and wander off with his thoughts and his gaze.

He allows her words to gently shuffle aside his feelings, and he looks back up while she speaks. “A coward?” he repeats, a little surprised. Charmeine has never exactly been a firecracker, but Khoshekh would not have thought her a coward. His curved ears twist back in forth as he tries to think of what to say, perhaps bring forth a memory of some bold adventure they’ve gone on together to remind her of her courage, but he finds that upon looking back, all of their time spent in one another’s company has been peaceful and soothing. Very little courage has been needed for either one of them.

“Hmm,” he says. “Well, perhaps I’m a coward as well, then.” He offers her a gentle smile. “The only time I’m not worried about something is when I’m with you.” The cheesiness of this sentiment does not even occur to him — he wholeheartedly believes what he’s said. Every anxiety about his parents or Fell’s enemies or the safety of his siblings is softened and scrubbed away when he’s with Charmeine. He reaches out and messes up her mane a little bit, flipping her forelock over her eyes like a colt being annoying for attention. He means it companionably, playfully, and touching Charmeine is not unfamiliar to him. They’ve spared before, or leaned on one another to nap in a patch of summer sun, or shoved each other into the snow. But something stays his lips from retreating right away, some little flicker of novelty that makes this different than their usual shenanigans. He lingers for a second longer than he should.

Then he comes back to his senses, and feels guilty for feeling this way while Charmeine is in distress. He gives her hair one last toussle to try and dispel the new feeling, and pulls his muzzle back toward his own body, where he really should keep it if he doesn’t want his feelings running away with him again. “We can be cowards together,” he says, his voice cheerful, but still gentle. He wants to say and we can be brave some day together, too, but he knows immediately that that is too much. He does not want to push her away, or give her another thing to be worried about, or make her feel obligated to reciprocate his feelings when she’s got enough on her plate. He feels that the best thing he can do is to try and be a peaceful presence for her, the way she is for him.

stallion | raven black | 16.1hh | Fell x Kohelet