Sorry for the wait; I haven't had a lot of muse for Skoll lately.
345 words
Skoll nodded in acknowledgment when she mentioned knowing about the artisan pack, glad that he wouldn’t have to explain himself a lot. He smiled over his shoulder in the grazing mare’s direction one last time before her question caught him off guard, and his ears fell into the blonde mess of his hair before he answered awkwardly. “No, not really. I mean, the master of horse in our pack can speak it really, really well, but—I don’t even know how to say hello.” His ears came up again, and a somewhat shy smile formed on his lips. “Could you teach me that?”
The shyness was absent from his introduction, but Skoll almost regretted how boldly he’d spoken when he saw her almost scramble for a courtesy. He liked for others to know who he was, so they didn’t try to step all over him and recognized the authority that was his kingly father, but despite his dominant nature, he had a bad feeling in his stomach at the sight of the white-furred woman submitting so readily to some cocky words.
It took him a second to answer her question, as he was trying to sort out his feelings about the title he commanded. “Just riding,” he said quickly. “I haven’t… I’m not quite old enough to go explore all the lands, but I wanted to come to the hills. They’re very pretty, and Hwin and I don’t get to ride out very much together.” That was the fault of the horse more than anything; if she didn’t want to go, she made it very clear, and he didn’t want to bully her. It was clear that the instinctual grasp of his dominance was becoming clumsier as he aged and learned what it really meant to be a prince.
“What about you?” the golden boy asked, smiling faintly at her. “Do you come out here to read a lot? What books are those?” He became a child again at the mention of books, his green eyes growing eager and his tail wagging enthusiastically behind him.
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