i know i'm not the center of the universe
-but you keep spinning 'round me just the same
It doesn’t ever occur to him that her hesitation might be caused by his slip of instinct; Ivar immediately assumes she is just a little shy. Her step back confirms it, and so he politely mirrors the motion. He steps a bit to the side as well, reversing his previous brief attempt to limit escape. Her path is minutely more clear now, the pied yearling isn’t trying to stop her.
(maybe he wants to chase her for longer)
His smile is warm and genuine, and he listens with interest as she explains she is from a different forest. Yes, he thinks as he takes in another breathe: she is.
“From the Taiga?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer.
When she speaks again, he is not expecting it. Ivar tilts his pale head to the side, his brown eyes shaded with confused. A bear? How can her father be a bear? Then he remembers. He’s sometimes a bear. He has to be a horse at least a few times to have a daughter. Ivar wonders for a moment if that means that Azar, too, is a shifter. He has not met very many of him, and those few interactions have been short.
He’s not quite sure what to say when she speaks again. This time, instead of frown he laughs, because of course he is not that.
“There are no wolves in Sylva.” Says the piebald colt with surety. Mother has told him stories of kingdoms and their novel protections, but Sylva has never had need of such a thing, and nor would Djinni allow true wolves residence where they might endanger the equine residents. Wolves have instincts, Mother has told him, urges to hunt and kill that are not meant to be curbed. Best to keep them at a distance, where at least they are free.
“I’m just me,” he says with a soft smile and a flick of his pale tail. “Maybe a bit of fish.” Fish aren’t scary, after all. Smooth and a bit slippery, perhaps, but not especially threatening.
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