[open] antlers and horns and scales

[Ajatar]

ajatar

devils speak of the ways in which she'll manifest;
angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress.

She, too, is youth. Striking youth, with the sinewy muscles of recent puberty, with the gentle curve of a childish face - she still looks so innocent, despite everything. And naive - it doesn't occur to her to watch her back as her mother might have (might have instructed, had she a motherly bone in her foul body) or be aware of predators. No, she was forever treated as the master predator, a thing to be feared and held at arms length. She never needed to learn protection, her fear protected her when it crawled out in its foul, abysmal pox.

Pestilence. Even her grandfather, the walking form of dereliction, cast her as something else.

But for all the abuse the filly remains in good spirits - a quick, easy smile to the stranger. Of what does she have to fear? In Pangea she knew only peace, and out here in the wilds she knows only peace. The predators keep wide berth of her, so she is unaware they exist. She lacks her mothers mean streak though - when prompted - that temper!

Such is not the worry now.

"Yes, of course, there's plenty to go around," she says with a nod, regarding the grass. "Though I suppose I'm not the one to ask for permission from, the grass belongs to everything, right? This is no kingdom?" She is now genuinely curious - did she wander onto a kingdom? What this a horrible breach of manners? Oh dear.

"Ajatar," she allows when he offers his own name. "That's my name," she clarifies, realizing he might have thought she just spouted out a random word. Did others do that? It's possible.