The chill of the autumn night was welcome against his still-damp coat when he finally caught her scent on the wind and turned toward it. She was tucked within a wild-grown orchard and it took him little time to see little Vela lying prone on the ground near her. Peyote came to a stop among the trees, peering intensely with his blue eyes from the shadows, barely breathing as he watched them both. His obsession with her was like no other. He did not understand these feelings he was having, did not understand the thing he became when he saw her.

Peyote.

She said his name. His name.

Just as quietly as he’d slipped into the Prairie he moved forward, winding around between the trees and offering her a very low, very quiet nicker just before he drew beneath the moonlight, letting it soak over his grey-brown skin and brighten the white markings he bore the same way her soft, broken stripes were. Briefly his eyes drew to her hip, trailing down one of those broken streaks of white hair among black, and his lips twitched, wanting to trace it again as he’d done so many times.

Peyote did not rush into her space. He did not behave the way he had when they first crossed paths. He walked up to her quietly and stopped, just out of reach… just far enough that they couldn’t even stretch their necks and touch one another. But he could look more closely at her and at their daughter, and she, him. His black-lined ears perked forward and he huffed a low warm breath into the cool air.

“Vervain,” he replied, voice low and quiet as it always seemed to be when they were alone.