The painted grullo tilted his boxy head and listened to her as she spoke. She said so much and with such breathy words, where they almost ran together, and he found he liked the rushed way her words crashed outward, like she couldn’t wait to spill them at his feet. Peyote was not one for many words himself. Early on he had learned he was capable of communicating with just a few basic words or statements and mainly his physical body, so he chose to do just that. It felt easier that way; simpler. But regardless of the choice he made for himself, he did have a tendency to enjoy the company of a talker.
Easier to fill the awkward silence when someone would make all the conversation for them both, after all. Sometimes if things were quiet with Peyote and his company for too long, he instigated a play-fight; like the extended silence with company made him restless. A young boy who couldn’t sit still. He became almost silly to rouse his company into “wrestling” with him - though if pushed, it was likely he could go a little too far.
He hadn’t been pushed, yet.
She said her name - Lenore - and he watched as she sank back into herself, those pretty, unique eyes telling him something her words weren’t. She looked nervous. He interpreted this due to being her as a seemingly unclaimed mare and he as a Lagoon bachelor, given his limited understanding of the world as it stood. He glanced back toward his sore hind and grunted, shifting his weight fully off of it before he looked back at her and blew another huff of air, lowering his head a little more and relaxing his muscles on the bank where he stood. He wasn’t planning on chasing her, or running away either. But the bruise hadn’t quite set into the skin, so she wouldn’t know he was currently nursing an injury. He tried to make it look a little more obvious that he was being careful with putting weight on it.
“Peyote,” he said by way of introduction, one of the few times he ever seemed to acknowledge he had a name he was meant to go by. His black-lined ears twitched and he nodded as if with understanding. “My father will die soon.” He did not sound terribly sad. His voice was quiet and yet almost unaffected by any emotion, it was more matter-of-fact. Peyote did not know how to feel about the permanent absence of his father. He had already accepted that of his mother some time ago, and neither of his parents had been particularly decent at raising him, of course, leaving him to behave how he did. But there was still a sort of lingering sadness hanging around him any time he realized how faint his father’s scent had become in the Lagoon.
His head tilted again as he looked at the silver girl standing in the river - Lenore. He wanted to tell her he was not afraid of her, but he had already said one sentence just a moment ago. Peyote shuffled forward, limping into the water to stand face-to-face with her rather than at an incline on the dry land. His hooves splashed into the frigid, cool waters as he crowded closer to her, as if showing her he did not fear her - he would put his physical body in easy striking distance for her, and relax his posture just as he had moments ago.
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