08-06-2016, 11:03 PM
His lip curls up in satisfaction at having scared her; she clearly was incapable of knowing that she had been followed the moment she trespassed into the badlands - his lands, and he likes the way she leaps frightfully at the sound of his voice in the empty air. He had half a mind to tease her further and ask if she was scared much or easily, but she is staring at him and he wonders if he has hawk poop on his horns (wouldn’t be the first or the last time, birds tend to void their bowels in the midst of flight and it is disgusting but also a fact of nature). Then he realizes that she is staring at him like a dog confronted with a piece of meat but dangled just within reach except not.
The black mare dances just out of reach of his horntips as she stutters something about having been aware all along that this land was his and home to his laughably small herd. Once her stutter would have opened something in his heart, something genuine and nice other than the dark blossom of malice that lurks there - he wants to wipe the wicked grin off her face but it tugs at him, tugs in an unfamiliar way as she freezes like a hare, considering. He is about to inch closer, to push the tip of a horn into her malleable flesh when steps in closer to him and his horns miss her completely. Mandan is shocked to say the least, as his flings his head up abruptly and snorts at the sudden nearness of her that fills his nostrils with her sweet unfamiliar scent and the way her black flesh is all he can see.
It is his turn to freeze the moment her flesh brushes against his own; too close, the very fabric of his skin screams in protest as his muscles tense unexpectedly as if she has burned him. Her nip is further insult to the injury of her claiming him as carelessly as he has done to her. It almost - almost - makes him grin, not in malice but in mischief, as if he was a colt again, large and so very unsure of himself, and most of all, playful. He is none of those things: colt, unsure, or playful but he is large and he throws his brawn after her, more nimble on his feet than a large stallion like him has a right to be. Her eyes laugh and dance, like her agile feet, and it is really too much for him and he wants to run his horns right through the salmon-pointed brown of her… but he freezes, it is not Ygritte that dances before him but some black mare that says her name is Feyre, and his murderous intent falls to the side, silenced by the fact that it isn’t her - the heart thief, and he sucks in a sharp breath.
“Guess I need something to call you by,” he mumbles, moving closer to her though he is slowed now by his own inaction and maybe a little uncertainty breaks through to shine like a dark cloud on his face. “I’m Mandan,” he adds gruffly, near enough now to retaliate with another nip but his lips shut over his teeth and his dark eyes swing from her to the oasis before them. He nearly shoves his nose into his neck, as if to goad her forth but she moves of her own accord, more freely than he cares to see as he starts to fall behind her, trailing after in case she changes her mind.