Keeper-
The Forest has become second nature to her; she knows it about as well as she knows herself. Here, she is free to come and go as she pleases and answers to nothing but the wind and the old old trees. Keeper is happiest here, traipsing up and down the trails less traveled because horses are creatures of habit and herd, and horses do not go where the deer go but Keeper does. She follows after them but they always run from her, just leaps and bounds ahead of her bumbling pony-sized self that lacks their same self-assured and inborn grace. That’s fine with her though, she is no doe with big liquid eyes but Keeper whose mane and tail are full of sticks and burrs, whose fur is growing woollier by the day.
It is cold, but that is to be expected.
She can smell snow not far off on the air as the autumn deepens. It leans terribly towards that time of frozen rivers and broad drifts of snow, and the shimmer of icicles hanging from the boughs of naked shivering trees. Keeper has no idea if it is shaping up to a mild or harsh winter, gives it no thought really as she roots through the leaves that have fallen to the ground. The last time she did this she almost snorted a few pellets of mice feces up her nostrils and that was a rather unpleasant experience, so she’s not quite sure why she is down digging through the dirt and the leaves once again. Except that she has a fondness (or a weakness) for mushrooms, and when she’s this deep in the woods, she looks for them.
But a flash of black and white goes by her and makes her throw her head up sharp. Her black gaze narrows in on the shape and at first, it looks like it could be him but she doesn’t smell lakewater and moonlight and there is too much white to be the constellations that pepper his nighttime skin. But for just a moment, there is hope. So much hope that it hurts her heart and Keeper has to remind herself to breathe. It had looked so much like him but the beast that had gone by was just another stallion, not him - never him, but she is curious nonetheless and moves after him. He seems lost in thought or perhaps focused, she’s never been able to discern much between the two.
The resemblance as she nears him is rather uncanny but a tobiano is not a sabino, there are distinct differences after all and he looks nothing like her Argo. Still, she gives him a wry smile that is not altogether unkind or sad just not like her usual chipper and odd self. She had hoped it would be him after all. The disappointment lingers with her that much longer and leaves her… not quite herself - not quite Keeper of the easy and loving smiles, even as her nose drifts close to his own and she inhales his scent just to confirm what her eyes have already seen, it’s just not him. Keeper huffs out a little bit of her disappointment in a sort of sighing snort.
She almost thought about going back to her mushroom hunt but abandons that idea.
He seems a bit forlorn in a way that she cannot quite pinpoint but only guesses at, then again he could not be that forlorn at all but rather deceptive in his quiet stance. Keeper cocks her head to the side, never taking her eyes off him since he’s a curious fellow after all.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless