Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Fennick knew it was autumn by the length of his coat. Up in the mountains, the leaves didn’t brown and fall as they did in the lowlands. The evergreen pine needles kept their deep green, and the passing of time was marked by a shortening of days and lengthening of coat. Already, he was nearly shaggy. His think black fur and plethora of velvet feathers made him look less and less like a horse and more and more like a bear.
A winged bear.
If there were stranger things Fennick didn’t know of them. Still, he had a lot of eating to do, if he intended to maintain his rather impressive body weight for winter. He had no business being as large as he was, and Demian’s gift of wings made more muscle to feed. Still, if all he had to was stuff his face, the inconvenience was easily justifiable. This year he had started early, and the young stallion was gobbling like a beast when she found him. Fennick couldn’t hear much over the sound of his own chewing, but the sound of her voice, followed by his name, cause his head to pop up, mouth still full of tough autumn grass. He smiled through the mouthful and struggled to swallow. The bite was sticky in his throat. In his haste he hadn’t chewed well enough, and his eyes watered. The scene was following by two of three painful sounding coughs before he had composed himself enough to talk.
“Shiya.” He said companionably. He was glad to see her. Fennick had been wondering about the snake mare. She was mysterious, both in look and story.
“Please.” He said, a self deprecating tone to his words.
“You interrupted nothing that shouldn’t have been interrupted long ago.” He meant, of course, his voracious eating. It was not flattering, to conduct yourself like a hog, even if winter was just around the corner. Still, he did have a lot of body mass to worry about. He hoped she would assume him strategic, rather than gluttonous. He offered her another smile and continued.
“How are you doing?” He said the question softly, and somehow the tone gave it more weight. He was, of course, interested in knowing how her day was going, but he left it open ended, in case she wanted to say more. Had she found Eight? Did she remember more of her past? How did she like the Valley? Had his poor social skills scared her back to the cave? Perhaps, a more skilled conversationalist could have wheedled these things out of her. Fennick couldn’t find the words, and he had no intention of interrogating the girl. He hoped his simple question would suffice.