Levent is by Sie!

It felt strange to head this far north again. While he had ventured into the woods before, stealing toys and necessities for his children from abandoned cabins, it had been a long time since Levent had wandered freely beyond Halifax. For much of that time, he had been a loner—an exotic merchant dropped into a new land, hunting in the forests and gaining as much intelligence as he could from the Nova Scotia locals. He’d had no responsibilities, only a whimsical will that covered up a dark and burning hunger for that thing he looked for.

Now, the Turk needed to come to terms with the consequences of that hunger, as well as re-bond with his friend. He had left Cercatori d’Arte under the guise of exercising the horse he’d traded for in Vinátta, the beautiful but occasionally ill-tempered paint mare. He knew that the others in the pack would help take care of Hotaru, although every day spent away from his children had him longing to see them again, see how they got a little bigger and brighter every day, even as wriggling nurslings.

“I know you’re thinking about them,” came a murmur from the side. The wolf glanced at the white tomcat balanced in the saddle, while tightening his hold on Mai’s lead rope. He shook his head and kept walking, the horse plodding somewhat complacently on the loamy ground. Frowning, the feline changed the subject. “So what do you expect to do, mate? Find the bag and convince her to stop mauling people?”

Levent scowled, and Wilson fell silent, flattening his ears and digging his claws into the leather of the saddle. Sensing the tension, Mai snorted and aimed a nip at the luperci, who scolded her in low speech more roughly than usual. This wasn’t exactly how the trip was supposed to go; he wanted to ease the awkwardness between himself and the cat rather than enable it. Still, there was too much on his mind for this to be a simple jaunt, and he knew he had to fix that somehow—whether through confronting the problems or lazily distracting himself from them.

He prayed for the latter to come.

Levent is by Sie!

The man’s prayers had been answered before, but not quite so violently and literally.

Thundering hoof-beats and crashing twigs announced the approach of something large and fast. A roan horse appeared at the crest of a hill for just a moment, sporting a white luperci on its back, before it threw its rider and charged down toward them. Yelping in surprise, the Turk instinctively opened his arms to catch Wilson, who dug his claws into his shirt and nudged his head into his chest for protection. He held the cat tightly, helpless as the paint mare’s lead dropped, freeing her.

Levent watched in horror as the other horse flew past, turning around and rearing back on her hind legs. Mai flattened her ears and let out a scream of rage, but she held her ground long enough for the roan’s owner to leap between them, grabbing the animal’s head. Lev took that time to reach for Mai’s halter, jerking it downward and telling her to relax, his horse’s speech accented with a wolfish growl. She resisted briefly, shaking her head and straining against his grip, but snorted at last, blue eyes glaring at the other mare.

“Tanrı aşkına!” the d’Artisan swore breathlessly, looking at the white hybrid. His lips wrinkled back, but he noted that the stranger was young and genuinely shocked. He shook his head, muttered another oath, and mewed softly to check that his friend was okay; Wilson answered in a shaky affirmative. He then scowled and looked at the hybrid with vestiges of shock still on his face.

“That’s pretty serious for her to have never done it before, erkek çocuk. What, did you just get her?” That was all that made sense; he had recently gotten the bay sabino himself, and so he didn’t know all of her vices and virtues just yet. He did know that, while somewhat bad-tempered, the mare didn’t go out of her way to attack others unless it was to nip a luperci she just didn’t like bothering her. At least, he hadn’t seen any fights break out near the d’Arte stables.

Levent is by Sie!

Mai muttered vengeful horsy things under her breath, and Levent might have been amused that her frustration was vented away from him had the situation not bothered him so much. It took an effort to lay his hair flat, and Wilson’s tail was poofed out like a bottlebrush. He smiled and stroked the thing, and the cat scrambled up to balance on his shoulders, his tail still lying over the man’s chest. Lev tried to ignore that his claws were still unsheathed; Wils was probably trying not to let them dig into his friend’s skin.

The Turkish man stared at the pale teenager thoughtfully as he explained himself, and he tried not to let too much disapproval show on his face when the mare—Jericho—fastened her teeth into him, however gently. He could guess at the pecking order of that relationship, even if the boy might not know it. Lev had occasionally deferred to the authority of a dominant horse, but it had always been a temporary way to keep the peace, and it had never been with a horse that he owned; that was only inviting trouble. Even as tough as he was with Mai, the paint managed to be extremely difficult. Maybe Jericho was just a really difficult horse, too, with an inexperienced handler?

“Perhaps,” the merchant agreed when the other made his excuses. “And we’ll survive, I think. Almost gave poor Wilson here a heart attack.” He smirked when the cat slapped his tail against his face.

With all the stress out of the way, though, he found himself desiring for some small talk—at least, he didn’t want to just walk away from the boy and his crazy horse. It would be a test of how well he could control Mai, too, although the mare’s aggression seemed passive for now. He cleared his throat then smiled. “AniWaya, hm? I’ve never visited the pack—although I live nearby, in Cercatori d’Arte. My name is Levent Kartal.”