Fierce Creatures (Nel & Sam)

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

18th Spring, 510 A.V.

Roaming the streets of the City was much easier from Horse's back. People paid attention to a sixteen hand stallion in a way they never would his rider, who was skinny as a shadow despite his height. Of the two, Horse was the first fed, and so he was the more substantial, but Sam didn't begrudge Horse the best of the best. They didn't have much, but they had each other.

He always hoped that nobody would notice Horse's quality underneath the road grit and the occasional snarl in his hair. Sam would've kept his equine brother in perfect condition if he only looked like the sort of young man who would own such a fine beast.

From atop Horse's back, he could see farther. Centaur-like, he felt more than himself with Horse, or more fully himself. There was no getting away from the horse-blood in his veins even with the intricate windmark that he kept carefully covered.

Attuned as he was to Horse's slightest change, he was only a beat behind the beast in sighting a diminutive Konti stepping out of a building. Only he wasn't quite sure what it was that Horse's horse sense sensed in the -- admittedly comely -- girl. He could only yelp with surprise and tighten his legs around Horse's barrel as he shifted direction and charged the white-haired witch, not responding to Sam's instinctive direction, making him look like he had no control.

Which, one supposes, he really didn't.

[Nel Sayo]

The pale-haired witch -- as Sam supposed she was -- was too busy licking the remnants of her breakfast off her thumb to see the horse and his rider immediately. A long-limbed, black-clad sylph who had no idea that everyone and their mother in this godforsaken city could look at her and know precisely that she was not human. When she figured it out, she was going to dye her hair and get a tan.

Syliras was a busy place, full of noise and bluster, and she'd gotten better at tuning those sounds out in the past few days. A-ship, all one had to listen to was the gentle toll of the waves and the occasional sailor's song; whistles, the aching cry of starving gulls, and the creak of the ship had been her lullabies.

So as she turned, taking a step to carry on in whichever direction she was going, she was just a second too late to avoid the sudden, long-nosed, beady-eyed attention of the giant stallion. He shoved his horsey face right up into hers, and she froze. Most people would've stopped and blinked, perhaps, to find a horse's nose mere inches from one's own. Maybe gave it a pat. Said hello. There were plenty of horses in Syliras, they trotted to and fro, though none had shown such an interest in her. Which had been, she realized with stark horror, too good to be true.

The horse whuffled interestedly.

She screamed, and ducked, covering her head with her hands and sinking into a crouch, cowering.

Because Nel was terrified of horses.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

The liquid-eyed "attacker" simply whickered with what Sam felt sure was amusement and then went back to playing dumb horse, leaving his rider to smooth over the sudden attack of the vapors the young woman seemed to be having. After all, Horse hadn't run her down. She wasn't an enemy. Or was she?

"H-hi, s-sorry," he began, not normally prone to stuttering. When she didn't respond to rational discourse, he slipped off Horse's back to make sure she wasn't mental, which he wouldn't rightly know how to deal with, so he hoped she wasn't mental, but just startled by Horse's antics.

"He's not dangerous, Horse." Lie. "I think he likes you." Possible lie. "He just wanted to play." Probably truth. "Um... hello...?"

[Nel Sayo]

When the horse didn't reach down and bite her, she scrambled back to her feet. Just in time to be in Samael's face when he arrived to check on her. Close up, her features were even more perfect than they were far away, and young besides. She blinked rapidly at him, bright blue eyes awash with terror, and no other word for it. Fists clenched into her fingerless gloves, she glared at him, muscles twitching to shove him a step backward, but too afraid to instigate something with his HELL BEAST looking on.

"I d-don't like horses," she ground out. Tears welled in her eyes. She hated horses, and they scared the crap out of her, and Nel was not good at being frightened and vulnerable, but she wasn't good at being angry either, so she tried in vain to convince herself that Horse was actually just a...puppy. Yes. A puppy. Unscary. Totally harmless. It wasn't working. "Get your h-horse away from me."

At least she wasn't screaming anymore.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"But Horse is a puppy-dog," he protested, dumbfounded.

He couldn't understand how someone could be afraid of horses, unless it was a horse in full battle dress running one down with an angry knight waving a big, sharp sword at one to boot. And living in a city, one was surrounded by horses. Maybe she was mental, or at least simple. She certainly started crying for no reason, which made him feel like a heel even though she was being stupid.

"Horse," he said, putting his hand on Horse's nose. The beast glanced at him for a moment before backing up a few steps. He tossed his mane, irritated that Samael was spoiling his fun.

"Honest, he's a puppy-dog. He was just playing. You're all right, right? Aren't you? All right?"

[Nel Sayo]

"He's not a puppy dog," she snapped. "He's a horse! And horses bite and trample and kick and are generally assholes!"

She didn't feel so good. Took a step back from him, folding her arms, and continued to glare at the horse. Phobias had no logic, not in action; later, she'd dream with a twitch of her jaw of the fire and the screams of the horses as they bore down on her, her mother, though she couldn't recognize the voice that cried out. Those memories were in her bones, not her mind.

"Look, I just don't like horses," she said, feeling stupid. And nauseous. "I'm sorry, I don't, and yours was just there, in my face."

Knuckling a tear out from beneath her eye, she sniffed and straightened. Brave face. The further away the horse got, the more she managed to regain her senses.

"I'm fine. Sorry."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Horse didn't exactly retreat, but he was no longer up in her business. Samael was too shocked to be incensed.

"Horses aren't assholes at all," he cried. "At least, Horse isn't. Not at all. He's the opposite of asshole. Like..." He almost said mouth, but realized the idiocy of following his logical fallacy.

Instead of digging himself a deeper grave, he offered her a handkerchief. It was clean to a certain degree, at least for a shabby vagabond like himself.

"Sorry he picked you to play with," he offered along with the bit of rough cloth.

[Nel Sayo]

"Well it didn't seem to me like he was playing," she insisted, hotly.

She knew people loved horses; she knew humans, and drykas, and plenty of other races thought horses were awesome and great and snuggly. She knew that, very likely, she was one of few individuals, of any race, who thought horses were terrifying and scary and who much preferred her own two feet, or the sea, on which to travel. But she couldn't help it.

Snatching the handkerchief out of his fingers, she wiped her eyes quickly, and then offered it directly back.

"It's staring at me," she insisted, glaring over Sam's shoulder at Horse.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"He likes you," Sam explained, as if to a slightly handicapped toddler. He was doing his best at being compassionate, but she was taking exception with the closest thing he had to family.

Taking the handkerchief, he waved it a bit to dry out her horse-hating tears, then tucked it away on his person again.

After a moment of thought, he asked the obvious because he couldn't think of an obvious answer. "Why don't you like horses?"

[Nel Sayo]

"Maybe to eat," she huffed, narrowing her eyes on the equine. "Maybe that's why he likes me."

Nel had very convoluted ideas of family, but even she was hard-pressed to consider a horse some sort of...relative. Ew. Good that she didn't know that's why he was so angry; she just thought he was like every other crazy person who attached themselves to those monsters.

When he asked her directly, though, her attention snapped back to him. And she blinked, eyebrows rising in surprise, as though nobody had ever asked her that before. Though, frankly, she hadn't encountered many horses before, not on the whole.

"I just," she sputtered. Flustering. "I just -- I -- they're scary."