The setting sun finds Fell pacing along the shore, the tips of his short feathers dragging through the grayish sand. His tail sweeps lazily against his heels, and his hooked ears splay to the sides, relaxed. His eyes are half-lidded against the blazing horizon, his expression smug and content like a cat with a full belly. To all appearances, the stout black stallion is practically sleepwalking.

He’s still alert, though, albeit unconcerned with his surroundings, uneventful as the past few nights have been. His eyes catch movement around the bend of the Bay’s namesake. Someone breaks from the waves, and slips into the woods soon after. Fell sheds his laziness, shrugging it away like an unfastened cloak. His head lifts abruptly, ears snapping forward, eyelids open. He rolls forward into a canter, picking up speed as he hugs the waterline for the quickest route. The figure had looked like Raegar, sort of, but the markings were wrong, as was the posture. Raegar has taken to sauntering into the Bay; this creature had slunk.

The hoofprints in the sand, as soon as Fell reaches them, confirms the presence of an unknown stallion. Territorial urgency had been rising within him on the way over, and now it spills over into familiar outrage. Fell bursts into the trees and follows the stranger’s trail.

He finds the intruder making short work of a mare’s personal space. Fell almost misses the filly as well; not one of his, but he isn’t really interested in dealing with anyone’s dead or missing kid. The kid certainly hadn’t asked for any of this.

Though he doesn’t recognize her, he does recognize the mare being crowded back toward the beach. It’s Coin, a younger mare he had never really considered his, having won her from Raegar some time ago. The two stallions swapped mares so frequently there was little point in getting attached to any of them, but Coin had stuck around. He is accustomed to her presence, and the not uncomfortable indifference they seem to harbor for one another. In any case, he doesn’t want her hurt, and she is his responsibility to keep safe.

When he first catches up, Fell pauses for a split second to assess, only in the interest of not trampling either mare or child. His ears are slicked back, and his lip is curled with disgust and aggression. He screams no challenge. Having inhaled as he paused, he is moving again before his exhale, the breath billowing out visibly in the chilly autumn air.

Having come from the beach, the intruder and Coin are now facing him, and Fell lunges straight forward. He aims to wedge himself between the two and separate them, or else slam his chest into the other stallion’s if he doesn’t budge. Coin is liable to get unceremoniously shoved to the side, but he aims the brunt of his body check at the painted stranger and hopes for minimal man-handling on Coin’s part. He can apologize to her later.

stallion | marwari mutt | black | torn left ear | bay