I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness,
nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory
He is still frozen, each much still but prepared to move at any minute, when Keeper sidles up to him, lowering her nose to breathe a comforting breath into the thick sand-gold pelt at the back of his neck. One dark-tipped ear flicks back to listen to her words, and the other still trained on the newcomer as she flips quickly between equine and feline form, imitating Ryan much as he had imitated Tick. Except, you know, less benign. Still, despite the mischievous way she had come on scene, Caw sounds and looks reasonably friendly. Ryan hesitates, stretching up to a regular stance from the crouch but still quite feline.
It is Tick's slightly scolding tone that tips the scale in the favor of calm, and he shudders out a deep breath and with the exhale, rippling and expanding back into horse form again. He is bigger this way, and it puts him quite close to Keeper, but he leans into the dunskin mare a moment (he doesn't think she'll mind) before taking a half-step away, giving his tail a hard swish to reassure himself of its horseness. "I'm Ryan," he offers, though perhaps unnessacarily since both mares have already addressed him by name in front of Caw.
Considering Caw's words Ryan tilts his head, letting his purple forelock fall away from his eyes, which he levels on her even as a frown appear as on his face, not an unhappy frown but a thinking frown. He has a lot of different frowns - mother had always laughed at him and told him he should try happier faces, but solemn and serious seemed more his way even when he was quite little. "Ischia...is an island." the young stallion repeats the words and glances meaningfully at Keeper, Tick, and then his own feet. "I don't know about living in a place I can only leave a few hours a day at low tide, lest I have to swim acrosss an ocean or wait until the next time the ocean has retreated." The purple-tipped buckskin doesn't remember all of his travels through Beqanna before he left, but he certainly remembers the inconenience of trying to reach Ischia. He had mother had a tried a couple times, but soon given up.
Ryan
( I love only that which they defend. )