07-24-2016, 07:16 PM
He’s not sure if he can fully claim them as his kind - the coyotes, just as he’s not sure if he can fully claim horses as his kind either. It is a duality that permits him to live as one or the other but he has no true place amongst either of them - something still sets him apart, a scent or a look maybe that is not entirely coyote or horse.
Nor does it occur to him that coyotes do not talk to horses. He has spent too much time in this form and his grandmother accepted him this way over his first shape. Scalped was used to the coyote pup scampering after her through the sands rather than a colt and had not minded the absurdity of his life as one, either or, or both.
(Had she foreseen the hardships he would later endure being more coyote than horse?)
His keen eyes take note of her natural wariness just as his keen ears catch the hesitation in her voice. It is then that he realizes she’s probably not used to animals talking back to her but he’s no ordinary animal and a barking laugh spills from his mouth. “Sorry,” he barks out around his lolling tongue and sharp teeth. The apology is all he can manage momentarily as she plows on ahead with her curiosity and questions.
Woodrow swallows another chortle of mirth and shakes himself briefly, squaring his shoulders and tipping his head back to better see her. “Probably not? They can talk to me and I can talk to them but they probably don’t have much to say to you on an average day.” There is a mischievous glint in the amber of his eyes as he stares at her, too frank to look away for all that he is coyote at heart and horse by birth. He doesn’t want to spoil the surprise just yet by shifting back into his young stallion’s shape so he holds off and begins to pace in front of her, “It is a mystery isn’t it? How I can talk to you and you can talk back to me… curious thing, that.” he muses aloud, never taking his eyes off of her all the while.
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