The pale-maned stallion is foolish and unsocialized, but he isn’t so stupid that the connection between him opening his mouth and the situation getting worse goes over his head completely. The mare’s comment stings, worse than her first one, but Omen is starting to realize that he’s brought this upon himself. What was she supposed to do, agree with him??
He can’t quite let go of his own prideful temper, though, and even when she spins around to berate him again, he braces himself to remain stubbornly impassive. He plans to act like he doesn’t care, like she’s the immature one instead of him, and then maybe she’ll leave him alone to seethe and think of more clever things he could have said that would really show her.
She doesn’t lay into him like he’s expecting, though. Her eyes are too bright, as though she’s on the verge of tears. Omen’s childish defensiveness withers a little as he comprehends the situation more clearly. He has zero bite to back up his bark, and his pathetic comment a second ago had been all the bark he had in him anyway. The wind goes out of his sails.
"I don’t know what the point was," he admits suddenly, ears twisting back and forth with discomfort as he concedes. He’s deeply regretting coming to the Commons. Socializing sucks. He squeezes his amber eyes shut to get the rest out. "I didn’t even mean it that bad at first, I just don’t know how to talk to anyone and it came out like that. And then I thought making it worse would make me feel better."
He cracks open one eye to see if she’s even still there listening to him. He doesn’t feel any better after his explanation, even knowing now that her bad day had already been bad before him. In fact, he feels worse. "Why were you having a bad day?" he blurts out if she is still hanging around.
Omen
hope is an anesthetic