"And yet here you are," I answer smoothly as he badmouths my brothers. It felt like the world knew of Rafe's strange tie to that spotted mare (although perhaps it only seemed that way to me, given my proximity to both parties), but that didn't mean I held her in the same esteem. She was no different than any other Peak matron, really, despite her title. Like all the rest she made no move to enact real change, just lorded about and needled at the Lagoon whenever she got bored. She might have been a threat if she had decided to be, but she never seemed to quite get to that part of ruling... at least from what I had seen.

Hell I'd defended against Khar'pern's attempted theft and stolen Marceline's predecessor and we'd still not had a retaliatory attack from the mountains yet. But as they say, not my circus, not my monkeys.

"You know," I murmured after he'd finished begging for my claim and insulting me in the same breath. "I used to think my sire got his stupidity from the queen of hot and cold herself, but I see now that I was wrong. It came from you all along."

Despite the insults leaving my mouth, my posture remained as relaxed as I could make it. I didn't want them to know about how conflicted I was feeling at my grandfather's presence. Rafe might have age and experience on his side, but this was my home. "It's me you'll speak to, old man." I wanted to rub my rank in his face, to really smear the mud all over his smug smirk, but no matter how I tried to phrase it in my mind it still felt like I was merely a boy requesting the approval of an adult for some accomplishment. And that I most certainly would not do. Not from him. "And you'll consider yourself lucky I don't make you a trinket just for fun."

I wouldn't, if only because that would then force me to explain to Garmr who they were and why I had reacted to their presence that way. Garmr, far more than these buffoons, had served as a role model to me once my sire had dumped me among the swamp to fend for myself. Somehow that didn't stop the strange ache in my chest at the realization that despite everything I'd accomplished for myself, Rafe saw me as less than Raegar. It was infuriating.

"Do you have any strengths?" I asked the silent figure beside my grandfather, really seeing him for the first time. He was utterly foreign to me, but there was a faint sense of similarity between the two that suggested that this was either some sort of relative or close friend.

Stallion - Young Adult - 15.2 - Brown Overo