07-27-2016, 09:42 PM
Is she beautiful? No.
She is a slapdash mix of bird and horse; ill-made and terribly new to be out on her own - just look at how sunk in her hind is, how slack her ribs are, but malnourishment can be fetching in its own right.
Maybe that is why he trails her through the brush. Because she is a grotesquerie of myth - horse and bird, more than he is as he is - addax-horned, big, and hulking. She is tiny and speaks to some lost part of him that begs his protection but only incites his own ire; they are all so tiny and precious, until they bat their eyes and throw you out of their hearts the moment you’re not around, knowing and having known just how you are - wild. He cannot help the bitter snort that gives his presence away, never mind that his scent would have done that if she had bothered to smell the air around her.
Mandan does not see a freak any more than he sees an almost-mare feathered and odd. It could be that he is faintly intrigued by her origins, by the way there seems to be a murder of crows tailing her (their caws are loud in his ears, loud enough to drown out all other sound). Or it could be the way the sun illuminates her, and the way her wings throw large shadows down on the ground. It never was more than curiosity, he lies to himself, ignoring the protective instinct that rears it’s ugly head inside him but he squashes it down with a grunt, pretending that he grunted only at the way a twig poked his shoulder.
“Little young to be out here on your own aren’t you?”
It is all that he can manage to say and he makes no apology for the way it comes gruffly out of his mouth. Manners never suited him much, and he made no use of them now, encroaching upon her space though oddly respectful of the span of her wings and how they were outstretched enough to cast shadows.