I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness,
nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory
The young stallion doesn’t realize he smells like his feline alter-ego, mostly because he has always smelled like that. You don’t really smell yourself, after all, and mother never said anything. Mothers, after all, tend to overlook minor flaws in their offspring. He nods at her name, considers her words before shaping his own response carefully, since he doesn’t really know what he wants either. “I was born here. Well, around here,” he gestures vaguely towards the Forest with his purple-tipped muzzle, because that was really where Nairne and her son had spent most of their time, in the shadows, looking for his father. “I briefly took up residence in a Kingdom here but I’ve been traveling for a while, just came back into the area.”
A while is so generous for a boy still not yet three, but he doesn’t want to appear like a child so he keeps his tone moderated and his words chosen carefully. He is paying more attention to their surroundings now and offers the gold-and-dark mare who approaches a nod as well, and then politely exchanges scents, the briefest of touches nose-to-nose, because Nairne raised him to be polite if nothing else. He adds her name to his mental roster and notes that she smells like the place he had once thought to live. Perhaps he will return their after all. Fate does have a way of being circular.
He is lost in his thoughts a little again, thinking she will offers some invitation or marketing spiel so he is quite startled when she turns back to him and mentions that he smells like a cat. For a moment the boy only blinks back at her, uncertain what to say, but then he takes a careful step back from them, out of range, because in times of uncertainty caution prevails. She doesn’t sound threatening but he doesn’t really want to risk anything. “I guess I should,” Ryan offers after a long, terse silence, forming each word very slowly. “I’m a shapeshifter, and I was travelling in my other form.”
Ryan
( I love only that which they defend. )