For a moment, he watches her watch him. But soon it is too much, Levi doesn’t trust he precarious mask of stoicism, and he quickly turns his head towards the river. Who is this girl who has fractured his iron guard?
She is behind him now, but he can feel her eyes on his back, along his neck, where they warm him.
The word friend continues to echo between his ears as he stares blindly across the river. The faces of his childhood acquaintances filter through his mind and he feels nothing for them - Levi had left Tephra last fall without a second look back for any of them.
Ashamed of the thought before it even fully forms, he quickly wonders if he could call Maugrim a friend. But Levi considered the relationship he had with the green and pearlescent colt to be more of a hesitant companionship or a strangely apt compatibility which inclined them to each other, rather than friendship. But maybe that was just a complicated way saying they were friends. But in the back of his mind, whenever he was with Maugrim, he knew the colt was capable of great violence. Was that something all friends worried about while walking together on a forest path?
There is a noise behind him as the blue mare begins to move in his direction, he's content that for a moment he seems to have forget about her. The magic she was working on him may not be stronger than his resolve after all.
But his satisfaction is fleeting and quickly replaced with tension as she draws up beside him. Her velvet muzzle connects with his shoulder, and involuntarily his own lips reach to the soft muscles of his chest, leaving behind a spot of blood on his ivory skin. Embarrassed by the display of his nervous habit, he refuses to make eye contact with her as her voice vibrates softy in the space between them.
Her words are once again gentle and non-exacting - she only asks of him to do what he is already doing. With a sigh, he lets his heavy skull fall onto the riverbank. He's relieved that she does not press her side into his again, that would have required a reaction. He submits to her proximity and whatever comfort he seems to be giving her. This is where I’m staying and she can do what she wants. He thinks.
Not admitting to himself that the more of him wants to stay than leave.
Levi
so scream you, out from behind the bitter ache.
@[Rapture] @[Wyrm]