my shadow tilts its head at me,
spirits in the dark are waiting.
She is quickly pleased at the idea of playing, her mood ping ponging back and forth. It’s beginning to make his head spin, honestly. Social skills are not his strong suit - never had been – and this mare is testing him more than the normal horse. Rhonan is very good at simply lurking, listening, fighting when he needs too. He’s very good at simply surviving. He is absolutely terrible at making friends and carrying on normal conversations. This probably explains why he lives in the Valley, with horses like Gallows and Fennick who were far from normal as well.
But the girl certainly likes to play, though her definition of the word is far from a typical child’s definition. Though to be fair, she does frolic. Sort of. He can see how popping in and out of the shadow portals is rather like frolicking. And then she goes after the animal, and that too, is something of a child’s game. Tag. Only the loser dies.
It makes sense though, for them. They are creatures of the darkness. Why wouldn’t their play be darker, just slightly twisted out of the usual? Rhonan has never played. Not really. His brother and he had mostly bantered and bickered and periodically beat the crap out of one another. But they didn’t play. And then Rhonan was sent through his myriad of lives, forced to eek out a terrible existence more often than not. And even when life was good, it always came to some horrid end. What good would play have done him then?
He doesn’t even have time to decide what he should do before Ana is back in front of him, a dead hare in her mouth and then, in front of him. She looks expectant, and then nudges it with her foot. Even Rhonan, with his general inability to read social cues, can figure this one well. Well, guess today he’s going to try something new.
But he stares at the hare for a moment. He can’t help it. Can’t help but see Azula as she tore into Gero’s neck, can’t help but hear the screams. The hare is not Gero, and this mare is not Azula. But Ana isn’t all that different from Azula either, and for what is perhaps a moment too long, Rhonan hesitates.
But he knows he can’t turn down the gift. Not if he wants Ana to stick around. And this is something he does want. Because imagine what they could accomplish together. Perhaps with Rhynn as well. A trio of horses that belonged in the shadows. How powerful would they be together? And at this thought he grins, something a bit wicked, a bit of a new feeling for him. He’s getting used to this though, letting the darkness seep in and take over. There’s something freeing about it.
He drops his head and rips a piece of meat from the hare. It’s warm and chewy and blood trickles off his lips. It is strange and not entirely natural, and he almost spits it back out. But the shadow animals hop and trot and slither closer, almost like they are pleased, like they are encouraging him. So he chews, and swallows, and grins again, looking back to Ana with a nod at the hare. He does have a few social graces, and he knows enough to share. Besides, an entire hare might make him sick. He’s not entirely used to meat yet.
After a moment, he finally figures he ought to actually speak. Words are not his strong suit, and he prefers communicating with them anyway. But still, they are in the field. “So what kind of home are you looking for?”
rhonan.