rhonen
molten eyes and a smile made for war
He has not been in this position before. He loved Atrani but Atrani is like his sister – he loved her like he loves his twin, would protect her with his last breath, just like Aubri. And he didn’t love Karaugh. He didn’t even pursue Karaugh – she pursued him, she knew what she wanted, and Rhonen just went along for the ride. A man has hormones, after all.
But now, standing in front of this stranger, Rhonen feels something. Feels pinned beneath the other boy’s blue gaze, though not in a threatened sort of way. Maybe he feels a little nervous, maybe there’s a weird churning in his stomach, but he wouldn’t call any of the feelings ‘bad’. Unfamiliar, yes, but not in a way he dislikes. The other stallion steps closer, drawing himself to his full height, and his words make the copper stallion hesitate only a moment, drowning his first instinct to grin at the stranger because he refuses to be that easy, not in making friends and not in…whatever this is.
He doesn’t want friends (or whatever) who can’t handle the rougher moments of a man haunted by nightmares and regrets, and so it’s easier to let them see the grumpy side of him first. Too bad that’s all most of them every get to see. “I suppose you would know,” he allows himself to say, in lieu of the smile, running his dark eyes across the other stallion’s body again, because he is a fine-looking piece of horseflesh. Rhonen considers himself a connoisseur of beautiful people, though he usually takes his fill of looking from afar.
Rhonen isn’t quite sure what he’s doing as he steps closer to the dark stallion; closing the distance so they are just not touching. He can feel the warmth coming from the stranger and it’s slightly intoxicating, making it harder to keep the frown on his face and the dark look in his eyes. The other calls him a meadow nymph, and some part of his subconscious shamefully registers that as not right. He isn’t anything so beautiful as that; he carries the seal of a demon inside himself and his touch can bring disease. He isn’t anything as light and pure as something associated with protecting the natural world.
(He always forgets that he carries the seal to keep it locked away; that he was willing to die in that quest to protect the natural world).
And anyway, his mind seems to be split between telling this stranger not to touch him, he’s cursed, and begging for the opposite. “I’m not difficult to find. The answer is nobody is usually looking.” Rhonen tries not to quiver as he considers closing the distance between them but waits for the other stallion to make the first move; he’s not a hundred percent sure what’s happening, and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by making the first move and having his instincts be totally wrong. “I’m Rhonen, by the way.”
