Post by Sohtoh on Jun 12, 2010 3:22:55 GMT -5
Starring:
Miel - Female Horse (Filly)
Virgil - Male Horse (Stallion)
Setting: Grassy Plains
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The prairie wind blows restlessly through grass, and Miel is restless as well. The young mare has drifted out from most of the herd, nibbling on small flowers as she finds them. She's not paying much attention to her surroundings - indeed, she hasn't realized quite how far she's come away from the rest. But there's a little white blossom just a bit further on, one of the ones that's getting hard to find as spring moves on towards summer, and she heads towards it, lowering her head to nibble at it delicately.
Having not been accepted into the herd the night previous hasn't bothered Virgil all that much. Near the area where his saddle had fallen from his back is where he stayed put, occasionally nudging the hard leather in an effort to turn it over, searching for any abandoned goodies from his rider. No such luck. Ammo for the strange stick-weapons that rested in it's own special belt, individually wrapped it seemed, a canteen that had burst from the fall, a rolled up blanket, and that was about it. Nothing for him, which kind of figured. His rider wasn't really the rewarding sort. He got food and shelter; that was good enough. Hearing something off in the distance, the grulla stallion perks his head up and cups his ears forward, glaring out rather harshly. "Who's there?"
Miel lifts her head with a startled expression, a little leaf still dangling from her mouth. Who's there, indeed! She starts scanning the horizon - wolves? No, no way they'd say something first... still, the young horse is concerned. Not quite a year old, there are many things that can pose a threat to her. She looks around, realizing just how far she is from the others and the safety of the herd, and gives herself a little shake. One thing at a time. There was a question there, and if she's figured out anything, it's that while answering questions sometimes gets you in more trouble, not answering them almost always does. So she lifts her head, and calls back, "Just.. just me." Her voice only quavers a bit, and she adds, "Just Miel..."
Letting out a huff of a snort, Virgil flicks his tail in irritation, but calms down once he hears the filly's voice, and sees her, realizing that she too is just a horse. "Oh, 'scuse me, miss." He says, immediately forcing a smile so as not to look quite so grumpy. A sideways glance is cast to the saddle, wondering what he should do, should she ask about it. Tell the truth or pass it off as something he just found, and was investigating. Probably the truth. "Well there, Miel. You part'a that group over there?"
Miel takes a slow few steps closer. Now that the stallion's tone is calmer, her curiosity is taking over from the apprehension... though she's certainly heard enough bad press about stallions to not be entirely uncautious. She nods her head to the question. "You mean Luna and Nukpana's herd?" she asks - not that there's any others around that she knows about, but there might well be one she just hasn't heard of yet. But... odds are good that's the one he means, so she nods. "Yes..."
"Hmm." He says, a sound of agreement, nodding his head a bit. "I figured. Don't like like theres many'a our kind out here, seems right to stick together." Virgil's tone is very neutral, as if just stating a fact. "So what'cha doin' way out here, miss Miel? Could be some dangerous things out here for a little lady like yourself. Wouldn't want you gettin' hurt or nothin' like that." Scuffing a front hoof boredly against the ground, he takes a look around and gives a chuckle. "Though, I haven't seen much danger since I've been here."
Miel stares out to the horizon for a moment. No, there don't seem to be all that many horses out here... Though she knows there must be some others somewhere. But which direction, and how far... that's the mystery. She ducks her head a little as Virgil asks her what she's doing out here - well, at least it's not really an accusation or anything. Besides, he's just a stallion - and not the one with the herd, for that matter. She brightens up, giving a little toss of her mane as she replies, "I was grazing. Looking for good bits of grass, and the little flowers around here."
"You came all the way out here to graze?" He asked, keeping the smile on his face, doing a good job of keeping his domesticated thoughts hidden. Had his rider still been alive and had they come out here for some reason; Miel would've been the perfect candidate to break. She would probably grow into a good sized, sturdy mare, perfect for the life of an outlaw. Or so his first impression seemed to resonate. "I'd help ya find some better grazin', but I didn't have much time to look around myself." Come to think of it, he was rather hungry. And a little filly like her could benefit from a chaperone. Even if he was a complete and total stranger. "Whattaya say I come with you a ways, and we both find some of that good grass you're talking about?"
Miel tosses her head, snorting a little. That sort of good-humored incredulity is almost worse than being scolded. And she really was looking to graze - well, mostly. She's rather fond of those little flowers. Perhaps overly so... and she's picked out most of the ones closer to the main body of the herd. It is, perhaps, fortunate for her that there are no humans around here, especially with her curious nature. At the stallion's offer, she pauses, considering. But - if he wanted to do something unkind, he's already had the chance. She rather doubts she could outrun him; she's not a racer, just a steady traveler. So... why not? "All right..." she says, then adds, "But don't think that being with me will stop anyone from chasing you off..."
Watching the youngster amusedly, Virgil gives a sort of shrug and shakes out his mane well. From all of his running the day before, portions had gotten tangled and a few flying sticks and twigs were caught up in it as well. What he really needed was a good rain to help loosen all the tangles and such. Even with his rider, he wasn't groomed often. Wasn't even formally fed often, either. The occasional handful of grain or something after a robbery gone well, or after he'd escaped the law, but he wasn't like those pampered prissy city folk's horses, getting fat on bales of hay and of bowl fulls of grain. Grazing sounded like a great idea, and he was happy that she felt like going along with it. "Now why would I think something like that, miss? I think I'm pretty confident your stallion don't want me around."
Miel's pretty confident of it too. Not only that, she's pretty sure Nukpana would disapprove of her even keeping company with a stallion, let alone a strange one. She may not entirely understand why, but the mental image is pretty easy to conjure, and she's still young and eager to please enough that she can't shrug off the idea of a potential scolding. "Well.. yeah." So is she encouraging him? She doesn't mean to, really, but she can't help being curious. "So... where did you come here from?"
"Not afraid of him though, neither." He says, his tone very factual, and still neutral. "He don't like me here, he can try to chase me out, I s'pose. Never met him, though. Can't say that I'm too lookin' forward to it." Muttering the last part, he lets out a breath and begins to walk idly to a spot off in the distance where he can see the grass looks thicker, and taller. Her question has Virgil glancing down at her, but he looks away, back at the horizon instead. "Oh, a long ways away. Further out west." His answer is simple, for her own sake. Virgil might not much care for the safety of many adult horses, but for a sweet little filly like her, he doesn't want her curiosity building in the department of two leggeds. Even if he doesn't feel them to be completely dangerous.
Miel nods her head softly. She's no judge of what makes one stallion win over another in a fight - though Sirocco's certainly the bigger one, of the two. But is that what actually makes a difference? She doesn't really know. But that's not something she'll worry about, for now - if the herd stallion wants to handle this, he will. And he, at least, is even-tempered with the mares enough that she's not worried about getting in trouble from him. "Why are you around here, then?" she asks. Her curiosity isn't deflected quite that easily... and she's already wondering a bit too much about those two-legs for her own good, from the other sources who've told her stories. If she ever figures out that this stallion has personal experience, that might be trouble.
"Well, 'cause I had to run away from my uh.. home? Not really much of a home, I wandered around a lot. But, yeah. I had no choice in the matter, really." Trying to keep things as vague as possible, he fails just as soon as he mentions that he 'had' to run away. Childlike curiosity might make the filly wonder just why he had to. "I think I like it around here, though. Seems .. quiet." The greyish stallion lowers his head to sniff at some of the grass here, but lifts his head back up and shakes his head. "Naw, we can do better than this, I think."
Miel perks her ears as she listens to that. It's really quite impressively vague. Vague enough to be downright interesting - she may be young, but nobody tells a story that dull unless they're trying to hide something! She tries a slightly subtle tack to get that information out. "You wandered? You must have seen a lot of interesting things, then... Stuff that wasn't so quiet as around here!"
Her interest has him only minutely concerned. Really, it's not /his/ problem if she gets herself into trouble.. but that doesn't mean that he rightly wants to /get/ her into trouble. "Yeah, ..yeah, I suppose I saw some interesting stuff. Definitely not the quiet type of stuff, neither." Stuff that a young filly like her should have no interest in whatsoever; murders of hundreds of things, robberies, kidnappings, rustles, all of them fond memories from the past that he wouldn't be bringing up.
Miel gives her mane an impatient toss. He admits to there being interesting stuff, and he's not going to oblige her by talking about it? How unreasonable. She doesn't even know what any of it is, but the more he evades it, the more fascinating she's sure it must be. But if he's not going to satisfy her on that, maybe she'll try a different question, for another bit of her wondering. "Are there a lot more horses, out west there?"
If it weren't for the fact that he didn't want her finding out too much about the two-leggeds on her own, he probably would've obliged and given in to talking more about his previous life. But, she wasn't pushing, so he wasn't going to tell much more. "Oh, tons more, darlin'! Had to've been.. oh, fifteen, twenty horses that I stayed with all the time. 'Course, the number.. fluctuated. But uh, yeah. There were heap tons of horses all o'er the place."
Miel nods. To her, it seems reasonable enough that the number would change - she's been with a herd with plenty of newcomers, recently, and her birth herd was large enough that she didn't really know everyone before she unintentionally left it, so of course a herd that kept changing size seems reasonable. The real reason why - and that it wasn't exactly a herd in the way she thinks - can remain mysterious to her. "You must have been pretty lonely, coming out to here, then. Moving away from all those horses you knew..."
Other reasons for herd numbers fluctuating might've been reasonable, but he didn't mean them to be that way. Of course, he was referring to horses getting shot and killed in chases, or by frustrated outlaws wishing to take out their anger on what they must've considered a helpless animal. Luckily, his rider was nothing like them. Oh, he might've been hit a few times, and he still had the spur marks, but discipline was different than abuse. Virgil laughs a bit at her last sentence, and shakes his head. "Naw, not really. I was just focused on gettin' the hell outta there. I s'pose I do kinda miss 'em all now, though. Ah, well. Not like I'll be goin' back any time soon. Bit too far off for my tastes."
Miel notices one of those little flowers, and leans down to snag it quickly. Then she tilts her head to the side, considering on what Virgil says. "What was so bad that you had to leave?" She tries to think - most hazards she knows of, the herd would either stay and fight, or move on together. Wolves you fight, wildfires... you're all running in the same direction, mostly. Did the stallion get cut off from the rest? She can't imagine how else - of course, that's just because she doesn't have the experience to know.
Not paying any attention to the grass to graze on, Virgil listens once again to another question, but hesitates in answering it. "It's kinda hard to explain, darlin'." He says, using the nickname just out of habit. Some might get offended, but generally, young things like Miel didn't know enough to be offended by the pet name. "I had an owner. A human owner. We're just doin' our regular rounds, and a bunch'a these pompous ol' lawmen came and shot him dead." Virgil's tone becomes rather somber, almost sad, but not quite sad. "Had ta' run or else I would'a been killed too."
Miel perks her ears up in a start of excitement as Virgil admits to what that interesting thing he's been hiding is. Humans? Owner - okay, she's kind of fuzzy on what that means, but it must be sort of like how there's a stallion for the herd and he fights off other ones, right? Pompous... lawmen, though? Is a law like when the lead mare says something? But she doesn't really know. And what sort of rounds would a horse be doing with a human? Those questions, along with a hundred others, start bubbling up - and then Virgil comes to a part she can understand. Death. Whatever these lawmen are, they must be like wolves, only worse. "Oh... oh..." she just replies. "That's... too bad."
"Yes ma'am, it is." He says through a sigh, his ears cupping forward as he flicks his tail and perks up once again. "Sure do wish I could go back, but I don't think I'll find another rider like my last. For every good human, there's about ten bad ones; one of them damned lawmen might pick me up." Virgil's language isn't very appropriate around such young company, but he's never had to watch himself in front of a youngin' before. "Aw, well. Shouldn't dwell on the past to much, right miss?"
It's not like Miel's going to tell the stallion to stop saying bad words - she just listens, fascinated. It would be rude to ask questions of such a sensitive issue - but anything the stallion wants to tell her, she'll absorb. That sort of matter of fact discussion of humans - a small positive with a lot of negative - probably does more to discourage her from seeking them than any number of diatribes. "Yeah..." she replies, and goes quiet for a moment, thinking on her own past with a distant look in her eyes. Then she gives herself a little shake, and nods. "Yeah. We're here now, not there."
Looking down at the ground, Virgil can see that they've finally made it to some decent grass, and he quickly lowers his head and nips at the lush greenery, chewing it up and perking his ears a bit more out of satisfaction. The grass back home was always so dry, or covered with dirt from wheels and hooves mucking it all up. "I know I don't know you very well darlin', but I want to make sure that you're not gonna go do nothin' silly and ask more about the humans. Horse can get 'imself in a lotta trouble they go around wonderin' about them too much."
Miel hesitates before answering. The stallion seems earnest enough about this, but she can't help but be intrigued, even though the humans are a frightening thing, as well. Everyone has some story about them, it seems, either on the surface or hidden away, and she wants to find out more. But... the stories are good to listen to, but they don't seem very good to actually live through. "I'm not going to go near them. But that doesn't mean I won't pay attention." She gives her head a little shake. "I'll have foals someday, and they'll need to know about humans, too."
"Don't rush into learnin' more about them, 'kay?" He asks politely, but follows up with a stern look before he flicks one ear back, and takes a few steps away. "Turns out I'm not as hungry as I thought I was, darlin'. You get back to yer herd just as soon as you've got your fill to be safe, alright?" Virgil doesn't sound like he's demanding anything, but rather requesting in a firm tone. "You have yourself a nice day, young lady." Without much else, the grulla stallion gives his mane a shake and begins to head off in the westward direction.
Miel - Female Horse (Filly)
Virgil - Male Horse (Stallion)
Setting: Grassy Plains
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The prairie wind blows restlessly through grass, and Miel is restless as well. The young mare has drifted out from most of the herd, nibbling on small flowers as she finds them. She's not paying much attention to her surroundings - indeed, she hasn't realized quite how far she's come away from the rest. But there's a little white blossom just a bit further on, one of the ones that's getting hard to find as spring moves on towards summer, and she heads towards it, lowering her head to nibble at it delicately.
Having not been accepted into the herd the night previous hasn't bothered Virgil all that much. Near the area where his saddle had fallen from his back is where he stayed put, occasionally nudging the hard leather in an effort to turn it over, searching for any abandoned goodies from his rider. No such luck. Ammo for the strange stick-weapons that rested in it's own special belt, individually wrapped it seemed, a canteen that had burst from the fall, a rolled up blanket, and that was about it. Nothing for him, which kind of figured. His rider wasn't really the rewarding sort. He got food and shelter; that was good enough. Hearing something off in the distance, the grulla stallion perks his head up and cups his ears forward, glaring out rather harshly. "Who's there?"
Miel lifts her head with a startled expression, a little leaf still dangling from her mouth. Who's there, indeed! She starts scanning the horizon - wolves? No, no way they'd say something first... still, the young horse is concerned. Not quite a year old, there are many things that can pose a threat to her. She looks around, realizing just how far she is from the others and the safety of the herd, and gives herself a little shake. One thing at a time. There was a question there, and if she's figured out anything, it's that while answering questions sometimes gets you in more trouble, not answering them almost always does. So she lifts her head, and calls back, "Just.. just me." Her voice only quavers a bit, and she adds, "Just Miel..."
Letting out a huff of a snort, Virgil flicks his tail in irritation, but calms down once he hears the filly's voice, and sees her, realizing that she too is just a horse. "Oh, 'scuse me, miss." He says, immediately forcing a smile so as not to look quite so grumpy. A sideways glance is cast to the saddle, wondering what he should do, should she ask about it. Tell the truth or pass it off as something he just found, and was investigating. Probably the truth. "Well there, Miel. You part'a that group over there?"
Miel takes a slow few steps closer. Now that the stallion's tone is calmer, her curiosity is taking over from the apprehension... though she's certainly heard enough bad press about stallions to not be entirely uncautious. She nods her head to the question. "You mean Luna and Nukpana's herd?" she asks - not that there's any others around that she knows about, but there might well be one she just hasn't heard of yet. But... odds are good that's the one he means, so she nods. "Yes..."
"Hmm." He says, a sound of agreement, nodding his head a bit. "I figured. Don't like like theres many'a our kind out here, seems right to stick together." Virgil's tone is very neutral, as if just stating a fact. "So what'cha doin' way out here, miss Miel? Could be some dangerous things out here for a little lady like yourself. Wouldn't want you gettin' hurt or nothin' like that." Scuffing a front hoof boredly against the ground, he takes a look around and gives a chuckle. "Though, I haven't seen much danger since I've been here."
Miel stares out to the horizon for a moment. No, there don't seem to be all that many horses out here... Though she knows there must be some others somewhere. But which direction, and how far... that's the mystery. She ducks her head a little as Virgil asks her what she's doing out here - well, at least it's not really an accusation or anything. Besides, he's just a stallion - and not the one with the herd, for that matter. She brightens up, giving a little toss of her mane as she replies, "I was grazing. Looking for good bits of grass, and the little flowers around here."
"You came all the way out here to graze?" He asked, keeping the smile on his face, doing a good job of keeping his domesticated thoughts hidden. Had his rider still been alive and had they come out here for some reason; Miel would've been the perfect candidate to break. She would probably grow into a good sized, sturdy mare, perfect for the life of an outlaw. Or so his first impression seemed to resonate. "I'd help ya find some better grazin', but I didn't have much time to look around myself." Come to think of it, he was rather hungry. And a little filly like her could benefit from a chaperone. Even if he was a complete and total stranger. "Whattaya say I come with you a ways, and we both find some of that good grass you're talking about?"
Miel tosses her head, snorting a little. That sort of good-humored incredulity is almost worse than being scolded. And she really was looking to graze - well, mostly. She's rather fond of those little flowers. Perhaps overly so... and she's picked out most of the ones closer to the main body of the herd. It is, perhaps, fortunate for her that there are no humans around here, especially with her curious nature. At the stallion's offer, she pauses, considering. But - if he wanted to do something unkind, he's already had the chance. She rather doubts she could outrun him; she's not a racer, just a steady traveler. So... why not? "All right..." she says, then adds, "But don't think that being with me will stop anyone from chasing you off..."
Watching the youngster amusedly, Virgil gives a sort of shrug and shakes out his mane well. From all of his running the day before, portions had gotten tangled and a few flying sticks and twigs were caught up in it as well. What he really needed was a good rain to help loosen all the tangles and such. Even with his rider, he wasn't groomed often. Wasn't even formally fed often, either. The occasional handful of grain or something after a robbery gone well, or after he'd escaped the law, but he wasn't like those pampered prissy city folk's horses, getting fat on bales of hay and of bowl fulls of grain. Grazing sounded like a great idea, and he was happy that she felt like going along with it. "Now why would I think something like that, miss? I think I'm pretty confident your stallion don't want me around."
Miel's pretty confident of it too. Not only that, she's pretty sure Nukpana would disapprove of her even keeping company with a stallion, let alone a strange one. She may not entirely understand why, but the mental image is pretty easy to conjure, and she's still young and eager to please enough that she can't shrug off the idea of a potential scolding. "Well.. yeah." So is she encouraging him? She doesn't mean to, really, but she can't help being curious. "So... where did you come here from?"
"Not afraid of him though, neither." He says, his tone very factual, and still neutral. "He don't like me here, he can try to chase me out, I s'pose. Never met him, though. Can't say that I'm too lookin' forward to it." Muttering the last part, he lets out a breath and begins to walk idly to a spot off in the distance where he can see the grass looks thicker, and taller. Her question has Virgil glancing down at her, but he looks away, back at the horizon instead. "Oh, a long ways away. Further out west." His answer is simple, for her own sake. Virgil might not much care for the safety of many adult horses, but for a sweet little filly like her, he doesn't want her curiosity building in the department of two leggeds. Even if he doesn't feel them to be completely dangerous.
Miel nods her head softly. She's no judge of what makes one stallion win over another in a fight - though Sirocco's certainly the bigger one, of the two. But is that what actually makes a difference? She doesn't really know. But that's not something she'll worry about, for now - if the herd stallion wants to handle this, he will. And he, at least, is even-tempered with the mares enough that she's not worried about getting in trouble from him. "Why are you around here, then?" she asks. Her curiosity isn't deflected quite that easily... and she's already wondering a bit too much about those two-legs for her own good, from the other sources who've told her stories. If she ever figures out that this stallion has personal experience, that might be trouble.
"Well, 'cause I had to run away from my uh.. home? Not really much of a home, I wandered around a lot. But, yeah. I had no choice in the matter, really." Trying to keep things as vague as possible, he fails just as soon as he mentions that he 'had' to run away. Childlike curiosity might make the filly wonder just why he had to. "I think I like it around here, though. Seems .. quiet." The greyish stallion lowers his head to sniff at some of the grass here, but lifts his head back up and shakes his head. "Naw, we can do better than this, I think."
Miel perks her ears as she listens to that. It's really quite impressively vague. Vague enough to be downright interesting - she may be young, but nobody tells a story that dull unless they're trying to hide something! She tries a slightly subtle tack to get that information out. "You wandered? You must have seen a lot of interesting things, then... Stuff that wasn't so quiet as around here!"
Her interest has him only minutely concerned. Really, it's not /his/ problem if she gets herself into trouble.. but that doesn't mean that he rightly wants to /get/ her into trouble. "Yeah, ..yeah, I suppose I saw some interesting stuff. Definitely not the quiet type of stuff, neither." Stuff that a young filly like her should have no interest in whatsoever; murders of hundreds of things, robberies, kidnappings, rustles, all of them fond memories from the past that he wouldn't be bringing up.
Miel gives her mane an impatient toss. He admits to there being interesting stuff, and he's not going to oblige her by talking about it? How unreasonable. She doesn't even know what any of it is, but the more he evades it, the more fascinating she's sure it must be. But if he's not going to satisfy her on that, maybe she'll try a different question, for another bit of her wondering. "Are there a lot more horses, out west there?"
If it weren't for the fact that he didn't want her finding out too much about the two-leggeds on her own, he probably would've obliged and given in to talking more about his previous life. But, she wasn't pushing, so he wasn't going to tell much more. "Oh, tons more, darlin'! Had to've been.. oh, fifteen, twenty horses that I stayed with all the time. 'Course, the number.. fluctuated. But uh, yeah. There were heap tons of horses all o'er the place."
Miel nods. To her, it seems reasonable enough that the number would change - she's been with a herd with plenty of newcomers, recently, and her birth herd was large enough that she didn't really know everyone before she unintentionally left it, so of course a herd that kept changing size seems reasonable. The real reason why - and that it wasn't exactly a herd in the way she thinks - can remain mysterious to her. "You must have been pretty lonely, coming out to here, then. Moving away from all those horses you knew..."
Other reasons for herd numbers fluctuating might've been reasonable, but he didn't mean them to be that way. Of course, he was referring to horses getting shot and killed in chases, or by frustrated outlaws wishing to take out their anger on what they must've considered a helpless animal. Luckily, his rider was nothing like them. Oh, he might've been hit a few times, and he still had the spur marks, but discipline was different than abuse. Virgil laughs a bit at her last sentence, and shakes his head. "Naw, not really. I was just focused on gettin' the hell outta there. I s'pose I do kinda miss 'em all now, though. Ah, well. Not like I'll be goin' back any time soon. Bit too far off for my tastes."
Miel notices one of those little flowers, and leans down to snag it quickly. Then she tilts her head to the side, considering on what Virgil says. "What was so bad that you had to leave?" She tries to think - most hazards she knows of, the herd would either stay and fight, or move on together. Wolves you fight, wildfires... you're all running in the same direction, mostly. Did the stallion get cut off from the rest? She can't imagine how else - of course, that's just because she doesn't have the experience to know.
Not paying any attention to the grass to graze on, Virgil listens once again to another question, but hesitates in answering it. "It's kinda hard to explain, darlin'." He says, using the nickname just out of habit. Some might get offended, but generally, young things like Miel didn't know enough to be offended by the pet name. "I had an owner. A human owner. We're just doin' our regular rounds, and a bunch'a these pompous ol' lawmen came and shot him dead." Virgil's tone becomes rather somber, almost sad, but not quite sad. "Had ta' run or else I would'a been killed too."
Miel perks her ears up in a start of excitement as Virgil admits to what that interesting thing he's been hiding is. Humans? Owner - okay, she's kind of fuzzy on what that means, but it must be sort of like how there's a stallion for the herd and he fights off other ones, right? Pompous... lawmen, though? Is a law like when the lead mare says something? But she doesn't really know. And what sort of rounds would a horse be doing with a human? Those questions, along with a hundred others, start bubbling up - and then Virgil comes to a part she can understand. Death. Whatever these lawmen are, they must be like wolves, only worse. "Oh... oh..." she just replies. "That's... too bad."
"Yes ma'am, it is." He says through a sigh, his ears cupping forward as he flicks his tail and perks up once again. "Sure do wish I could go back, but I don't think I'll find another rider like my last. For every good human, there's about ten bad ones; one of them damned lawmen might pick me up." Virgil's language isn't very appropriate around such young company, but he's never had to watch himself in front of a youngin' before. "Aw, well. Shouldn't dwell on the past to much, right miss?"
It's not like Miel's going to tell the stallion to stop saying bad words - she just listens, fascinated. It would be rude to ask questions of such a sensitive issue - but anything the stallion wants to tell her, she'll absorb. That sort of matter of fact discussion of humans - a small positive with a lot of negative - probably does more to discourage her from seeking them than any number of diatribes. "Yeah..." she replies, and goes quiet for a moment, thinking on her own past with a distant look in her eyes. Then she gives herself a little shake, and nods. "Yeah. We're here now, not there."
Looking down at the ground, Virgil can see that they've finally made it to some decent grass, and he quickly lowers his head and nips at the lush greenery, chewing it up and perking his ears a bit more out of satisfaction. The grass back home was always so dry, or covered with dirt from wheels and hooves mucking it all up. "I know I don't know you very well darlin', but I want to make sure that you're not gonna go do nothin' silly and ask more about the humans. Horse can get 'imself in a lotta trouble they go around wonderin' about them too much."
Miel hesitates before answering. The stallion seems earnest enough about this, but she can't help but be intrigued, even though the humans are a frightening thing, as well. Everyone has some story about them, it seems, either on the surface or hidden away, and she wants to find out more. But... the stories are good to listen to, but they don't seem very good to actually live through. "I'm not going to go near them. But that doesn't mean I won't pay attention." She gives her head a little shake. "I'll have foals someday, and they'll need to know about humans, too."
"Don't rush into learnin' more about them, 'kay?" He asks politely, but follows up with a stern look before he flicks one ear back, and takes a few steps away. "Turns out I'm not as hungry as I thought I was, darlin'. You get back to yer herd just as soon as you've got your fill to be safe, alright?" Virgil doesn't sound like he's demanding anything, but rather requesting in a firm tone. "You have yourself a nice day, young lady." Without much else, the grulla stallion gives his mane a shake and begins to head off in the westward direction.