08-09-2016, 10:20 PM
throw me to the wolves & i will return leading the pack.
Keeper stares, and cannot stop.
She knows it is impolite to stare, and stares anyway.
That bit of roughened fur on his cheek is impossible to look away from; she wants to smooth it down with her tongue, as a mother would do to her newborn. This is not how she looks at him though. Her eyes are dark, and see more than she believes is really there. He is white hairs on black hairs to make fur, and beneath that, muscle and bone that flesh him out. Keeper sees dark wind, moony night, and snow falling on stars before she is sucked back into herself with a single breath.
Oh where are her manners? She could swear that manners have been ingrained in her heathen self, but that is only a half-truth. Keeper spent more time staring at the slant of light in the trees then she did listening to the things her father tried to tell her. Eventually he gave up, and she ran wild - ran right into the forest and surrounding meadow, right behind the elusive deer and right into him, almost. She still thought him some made-up thing of wind and shadow, oddly handsome in a way that she has never thought of a stallion before and a faint heat burns underneath her skin, a hot flush of embarrassment as she ducks her head away from his eyes.
How is that he can see right into her, too?
“Maybe you are,” she answers him, curious as to why there is no humor in his smile.
He seems terribly sad to her; she longs to fix that in him and put some happiness back into the corners of his mouth where they seem too pinched together and tight. But if he is terribly sad, then she is terribly serious despite even the bit of laughter that piggybacks onto her words, causing them to be lighter than they feel when coming out of her mouth. Both of them seem to look everywhere else but at each other, careful to keep their eyes from meeting but that too, is impossible despite how careful they are. She tries to keep her heavy gaze averted but it still finds him, and she is shocked by the curiosity that she discovers there in them.
Why should he be curious about her?
She is staring back at him, but this time his eyes are more intent on uncovering things than hers’ are.
Keeper, like a secret, pulls her eyes away from him and looks everywhere but at his face. His black fur is quick to become stippled then splashed with white; like the spot on his neck, belly, and the high stockings on all four legs. He was more minimally and beautifully marked than her brother, and not obstructed by wings that fit better on a bird than on a horse. She realizes that he is saying something and tears her eyes away from his legs to meet his gaze, easily ensnared. “Keeper,” she admits, because it does not sound as exotic as his name, one that she tumbles around in her mouth like a pebble before repeating it back to him - “Argo, a pleasure.” His name becomes treasure in her mind, valuable and hoarded - she keeps it, that is what she is - a keeper, of his company and she smiles a little shyly at him.Keeper