Vadar
Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one
If she wasn’t dying, then he wasn’t a horse.
Still, the way she challenges death in the grasp of its hands rouses a soft, genuinely amused smile across his pale mouth. A fighter. He could respect that since he’d been there himself not too long ago. She tells him this is the Cove and he thinks, good, not too far a distance for walking, but his legs are screaming otherwise. The delirious ramblings that come after that are basically useless, so he treats them as such by turning his eye away from her and out towards the range of heavy mountains.
He hears the soft scuttle of dragging rocks, and watches a fully grown bear approach them in the distance.
This is not so good. Vadar tells himself, especially when the creature lumbers closer, teeth bared. He’s already weak enough as it is that fighting off a hungry predator wouldn’t exactly be an easy sort of thing, and he’s not exactly spreading his legs squarely and lowering his head above ‘the dawn’ to protect her.
Not really.
He’s just not interested in attracting attention from some fucking animal out here by the ocean, and for the moment he’d rather not see this particular mare get dragged off and finished before her personal battle with death was over. Someone, he doesn’t remember who, had come around when he’d been on the brink and tugged him back.
The red glow of his eyes shines, flashing out like a silent threat to the teeth bared at him. He was sure he’d be forgiven if he decided to blow this animal into a mist of chunky bits, and right at the moment he can feel a weak sort of pressure beginning to build like a red-hot migraine, the shapeshifter saves her own ass and starts talking.
“Oh for the… ” He mutters, blinking away the light source to watch her change shape. He’d never seen anything like it - the action of transforming from one animal to another was pretty gross - so he winces backward a step or two and looks away as Caelestra goes to work on The Dawn. He should be getting home, now. Not standing around waiting to be questioned.
Cael interrupts those thoughts, catching Vadar’s attention and the sharp, inquisitive look that follows it. He can easily discern the soft curve of her nose looking up at her, that’s how close she is. It doesn’t bother him. He assess her for a quiet moment and then looks past her, towards the larger mare. “Are you Clayton?” The rasp of his question is meant for the healer.
@[Dawn] @[Caelestra]