Their interactions had been rather simple until his native language rolls off of his tongue into the air, sparking something within the voiceless deer before him. The reaction to his words is immediate, his tapered snout tilting sideways and ears pricking forward, leaving Ferro faintly confused, but rather intrigued. The man uses his lanky limbs to dance around the beast now, excitement shooting into the air from his nimble frame like high voltage sparks- unpredictable yet entirely too fascinating.
"Stai bene, piccola oscurità?" He inquired slowly to the man that skipped around him before finally resettling with an excited glint in his ebon-hued features. The words tumbled slowly and cautiously out of his mouth, each one wrapped in a heavy voice. It was this speech, this heavy accent of his that immediately set him apart from everyone else, that made him seem as different as he was. It was low, with an agreeable trace of huskiness and with a power that his body already suggested he had. The voice, be it the foreign words or the way they were said, resonated with the 14 hand boy that watched eagerly, seemingly desperate for Ferro to make a connection he did not see- gesturing to his scarification; motioning for the beast to speak on the matter of his wing-shaped scars. "Are you-" His voice, a rolling sound with rising inflections at the ends of each phrase, is abruptly halted as his company paws the ground, his head low in a position that could only resemble a bull.
One minute, the deer-bodied Akhal Teke is pawing the ground, then the next he is bounding forwards, a full-on charge. Ferro's brows furrow and his head tilts downwards, the sharp tip of his thick horn pointing at the stranger as inconspicuously as possible. If he truly desired to ram into the beast, he would feel the sharp pain of Ferro's horn first and foremost.
But then he doesn't crash into him. There is no mangling of limbs and extremities, no collision of flesh on flesh. There is no gnashing of teeth or blood drawn. There is simply a desperate look flashed in anticipation, coveting the idea that Ferro will perfectly comprehend their game of charades; the silent plead, a mute do you understand?
And he does. (For the most part.)
"You.. uh," his accent is thicker now as he tries to phrase and say what he wishes. "Play with cows?" An incredulous expression crosses his face, in disbelief that this small man is able to properly play with the four-legged creatures. "Come si dice..." he pauses just briefly before continuing. "Combattente del toro? Bull fighter?"
Ferro had never 'played with cows,' as he had so simply put it. In truth, he'd never really seen a bull that was not of the buffalo variety and more of the Spanish Fighting Bull breed. They did not wander through the forest like the equines, pegasus, and unicorns did. Nor did the beast travel to the never-ending fields of green where one might stumble upon a bull meant for fighting. Ferro had danced with many monsters, leaving them on the verge of death, bleating inconsequentially into the night as if their lives could be salvaged, but he had yet to tackle a bovine bred simply to fight. Quietly, the beast wondered where the small man originated, his curiosity peaking.
Then there was a wind.
In his experience, the many chapters of it, the wind did not arrive all of a sudden. It should build up gradually and it should weave through the tree trunks, shaking the weak leaves from the branches and conducting the loose ground underfoot upwards an into the breeze. Yet now there was such a gale that new green leaves were tumbling down, some still attached to their twig. Every fiber of his being commanded him to prepare; to fight this new force that began to constrict him, but he was as rooted where he was, his cloven hooves never moving, even as the constricting grew worse and the darkness of the Rift kissed his soul, ripping away his magic in the process.
As the wind retreats, he can still feel its lingering presence at his side the moments following its departure. Standing once more at his full height, ears pinned flatly against his nape, feathered-tail whipping to and fro viciously, and a foul expression written on his bi-colored face, a growl reverberates upwards through his throat and into the air in a menacing sound. "What was that," he bites out, flashing his teeth angrily in the process, asking the mute stallion before him, but at the same time no one in general.
"."
Ferro
the kind of frigid not measured in temperature
a cold-hearted man was once a man that once cared too much.
The Portal
