Fell doesn’t expect her to forgive him immediately, and even as Mṛgaśira approaches him, he isn’t sure if this is actually forgiveness, or just a ceasefire. Either way, he’ll take it; he’s never truly, physically fought with one of his mares, and he doesn’t like it. She is still tense as she brushes against him, but her touch is deliberately soft, and it prompts him — perhaps unconsciously, without him telling his body to do so — to relax.

When she speaks, Fell listens with almost as much surprise as he had felt toward her aggression. He has never heard her say so much at once. Listening, for Fell, takes up all the space in his conscious mind that is left by his muteness. He can shut voices out entirely, stubbornly, as though doing so brings some semblance of balance to him when he is particularly upset or ire. Words roll off of him like water rolls across a parched and compact patch of earth. Sometimes, though, he listens desperately, soaking up words like earth freshly tilled. Of these two extremes, Fell doesn’t always choose, and now he listens without quite making the decision to do so. Perhaps he could not have shut Mṛgaśira out if he had tried, or perhaps he only deludes himself into thinking he ever makes this decision for himself.

He doesn’t respond, of course, but his ears splay apologetically to either side, and his head tucks down in shame. It isn’t the all-consuming, drowning, desperate shame of before, but a simple, acute shame of the moment. His body does not go slack with it. He just… lowers himself a little, and chews at the air once in submission.

When she comes closer, acknowledging the spot he had bitten on her hip, Fell presses a kiss against it. He could see how badly it stung; he had watched the skin twitch, the hind leg stomp. He makes a grooming motion with just his top lip, gently, swirling against the red-white fur in that spot to soothe the pain he had caused.

FELL

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