BOONE
cw // brief description of surface wound
"Highly unlikely," she said. "You don't look like anyone else I know."
Were Boone in a finer mood, he would have gloated at that. Of course he didn't look like anyone she knew. He was one of a kind. In spite of his middling years, Boone kept in good shape. His figure was muscled in a lean, rangy way, conveying his active lifestyle, and he'd worked hard to ensure there was not a single mark on his coat, barr the jagged splashes of white that cut through the honey-gold.
No—that was not true anymore, he remembered belatedly. Recently he'd got too cocky on one of his voyages to Luthien and August had thrown him in the dirt, giving him a good scrape across the flat plane of his shoulder where a thorny shrub had caught and tugged him open. An unsightly half-healed scab clung there now.
The thought of it dampened his mood even further.
"You smell like Luthien."
That, he had trouble ignoring. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Boone swung his hindquarters around till he stood perpendicular to the mare. He eyed her, his expression openly sour. Surprisingly, she seemed about his own age. He'd assumed she was young: young and stupid and overconfident enough not to know a dangerous stallion when she saw one. There was certainly no fear in her that he could detect.
"I might've passed through once or twice," he admitted, his slow drawl sharp at the edges. "But it ain't home. Clearly it's yours, so why don't you head on back instead of making yourself a nuisance? Better be quick, too, before that little parasite pops out."
Narrowing his eyes at her, Boone turned and walked a stride or two through the sun-wilted grass, hoping that would be enough to deter her from further conversation.