[private] such a simple thing

[Vastra]

Vastra watches him with a predatory gaze, but only because not once in all her years has she learned how to soften her intensity. Not when she’s actually interested in something, and she’s curious about this painted stallion before her. She watches him react to her words before he replies, noting the flick of a tail and the arrival of a relaxed smile she does not quite believe. She’s watching for cracks, leaks of what her words and question made him think. She didn’t need to watch for them, though, because they appear in his words - and then the frown that chases away the smirk. Is this when her gaze should soften? It doesn’t. Oh no - he’s just become far too interesting for that. There is no flicker of fear in her, and the grin that forms is born of delight (a twisted delight, maybe, but it still counts). “Perhaps he and I can practice our manners together sometime.” And although she accompanies it with a short laugh (practically a bark, in her rough voice) she is entirely serious. She wants to see what creature is lurking beneath this gilded figure, what sort of manners she might be able to teach him. Wants to see what drives him to separate himself from whatever he can turn into. But she follows this suggestion with something of a peace offering, her feline tail thumping once against the rock she lounges on. “I lost… more years than I can count as this form. Lost myself to it for the majority of my life, I didn’t even remember that I had even been a horse once.” She remembers falling back into her horse-form, being half-feral from decades as a lioness, and unable to shift back and disappear into the blissful ignorance. Unable to assimilate easily into the herd and hoof life she had found herself in. Now, she enjoys the freedom of being able to move between forms and feel at home in each. Her focus doesn’t waver, doesn’t shift, and she could be part of the rock itself for all she moves. He has become the most perfect of distractions. “This… ease is recent.” v a s t r a

artwork by space1993

@[Svedka]