The blueberry bushes are met with a suspicious glare, taller than her, and dense, they grow thick and tangled and don't look at all like how she pictured Barry. Around mare and filly is the thick, vegetal smell of summer, though it is still winter and snow clings to the higher places, stubbourn, but yielding to the inexorable warmth. This, the filly decides is not likely to be Barry at all. She snorts and pins her ears at the large bushes, only approaching after Lethy has deftly plucked several berries from their branch, and then it is with nostrils flaring, and reaching, stretching, while standing impossibly far away. Indelicately, Popinjay grabs a branch, getting a pang of sweetness mixed with the bitterness of leaves and the rough pulp of woody branches and bark.
GACK
She spits this to the ground and tries again, but she does not have the finesse to pull off only the berries. It is lucky, then, that her coat is so dark that it masks the purple staining of the dusty, blue-skinned fruit. The leaves stuck in the curls of her forelock, however, are bright and obvious. Thus decorated, she turns her head quickly when the sound of heavy hooves approaches them. Is this going to be Barry? Her ear flick forward and she rolls her neck once, crow-hopping in short-lived excitement, as, very quickly, she changes her mind about wanting to meet him at all. The buckskin mare had certainly not lied, Barry Bushes was large. Impossibly large. He towers above the small filly, and even over the golden mare who was, herself, reasonably tall.
Stopped mid-stride, Popinjay only gazes at the stallion for a short time, standing with one foreleg dangling in the air like a frightened dog, and then with a surprising suddenness, she disappears, scrambling behind Lethy. Hidden in the mare's shadow, she peers beneath her belly, watching the stallion's hooves as they come nearer and then halt. She pays no attention to his words - they are not meant for her directly, anyhow, and so she forgets them immediately. As the two friends come together, she is careful to keep Lethy between herself and Barry, though, slowly, the filly comes to take him in fully, ears back, then forward, then split, cautious.
But then, everything changes.
Everything changes because, in one moment, the stallion turns broadside and, past the heavy neck and shoulder, holding fast to the thick hair and hide of his withers, is a bird!
And oh! Oh, Popinjay wants a bird, too!
Caution thrown to the wind, she moves, silent, but intent. The adults likely do not even notice her, caught in their own re-introductions, and quickly - so quickly! - she is next to Barry (did Lethy say Aten? What is an Aten?) With insistence, she presses her small, firm muzzle twice in the hollow behind the stallion's elbow, pulls away briefly, and then reaches up, chin and jaw pressing firm into the his shoulder. But it is no use. He is too tall and her curious nose does not reach even the longest talon of the falcon's lowest claw, though she tries valiantly to stretch her upper lip high enough.
Nonetheless, she makes no attempt to pull away, and only leans into Barry's shoulder more.
GACK
She spits this to the ground and tries again, but she does not have the finesse to pull off only the berries. It is lucky, then, that her coat is so dark that it masks the purple staining of the dusty, blue-skinned fruit. The leaves stuck in the curls of her forelock, however, are bright and obvious. Thus decorated, she turns her head quickly when the sound of heavy hooves approaches them. Is this going to be Barry? Her ear flick forward and she rolls her neck once, crow-hopping in short-lived excitement, as, very quickly, she changes her mind about wanting to meet him at all. The buckskin mare had certainly not lied, Barry Bushes was large. Impossibly large. He towers above the small filly, and even over the golden mare who was, herself, reasonably tall.
Stopped mid-stride, Popinjay only gazes at the stallion for a short time, standing with one foreleg dangling in the air like a frightened dog, and then with a surprising suddenness, she disappears, scrambling behind Lethy. Hidden in the mare's shadow, she peers beneath her belly, watching the stallion's hooves as they come nearer and then halt. She pays no attention to his words - they are not meant for her directly, anyhow, and so she forgets them immediately. As the two friends come together, she is careful to keep Lethy between herself and Barry, though, slowly, the filly comes to take him in fully, ears back, then forward, then split, cautious.
But then, everything changes.
Everything changes because, in one moment, the stallion turns broadside and, past the heavy neck and shoulder, holding fast to the thick hair and hide of his withers, is a bird!
And oh! Oh, Popinjay wants a bird, too!
Caution thrown to the wind, she moves, silent, but intent. The adults likely do not even notice her, caught in their own re-introductions, and quickly - so quickly! - she is next to Barry (did Lethy say Aten? What is an Aten?) With insistence, she presses her small, firm muzzle twice in the hollow behind the stallion's elbow, pulls away briefly, and then reaches up, chin and jaw pressing firm into the his shoulder. But it is no use. He is too tall and her curious nose does not reach even the longest talon of the falcon's lowest claw, though she tries valiantly to stretch her upper lip high enough.
Nonetheless, she makes no attempt to pull away, and only leans into Barry's shoulder more.
Popinjay
.........
@[Izora Lethia] @[Aten]
