she acts like summer & walks like rain
The stallion that approaches towers above her like a collection of stilts, all long legs and lean shapes. His coat, too, makes him stand out. Like her own, it is nearly all white, except where hers bore large, irregular coppery-brown spots, his were tiny and gray-black, freckled all around his pretty pale eyes and pale pink nose. He was more handsome than she had expected, and even though she managed to deliver her question with nary a wobble in her voice, she could not tear her eyes away from him as he obligingly turned to face her.
"Well, home, of course," she answered with a bell-like laugh, gesturing across the great ocean on his other side.
"Or rather, what home used to be. It's rather different now, and I'm not so certain I belong there anymore."
She frowned, her gaze finally leaving his face to cast off into the distance while her brow furrowed with thought. Her father would still be happy to see her, as would her other two aunties, but the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to go home to a herd without her momma or auntie Swan. These islands might be the ultimate unknown, with a future so wild she could not even picture it, but at least it held the possibility of not being sad.
The corners of her lips twisted further down at the realization that she may have answered her own question anyway and she brought her gaze back to the nameless stallion once more.
"I suppose that kind of answers it, though, doesn't it?" She drew in a sigh with a flick of her tail and tried on a tremulous smile.
"That's it then, I shall stay on these islands." Her smile grew in strength, compressing the edges of her eyes into small lines of merriment.
"I find myself in your debt, sir."
He might not have said much - yet - but his presence here had given her a reason to speak the thoughts whirling through her head aloud, and thereby, to sort through them. She was still amazed by how unfairly pretty he was - a veritable supermodel of a horse, if such things were to exist - and he made her feel small and bashful in response.
"My name is Ettie. Might I have the name of my assistant?"