keep me from the cages || Elektra & Bastien
She’d once stolen an Assarian mare from a prince’s prized herd. A glossy-hoofed, stark temperamental beauty. She was fleet-footed and agile; flew across heated sands with a swiftness unknown by other Kingdoms. Elektra had been born into a life with warhorses; whose bones were not so fragile and muscles able to withstand arrow after arrow. They, however, could not have fared well within golden deserts. Like many things they were built for another purpose and to live a different life. Like many things, they belonged to a specific home. Elektra did not fit into this category.
She did not fit into any category where the word ‘home’ was present. There was, however, one place she could always consider home. It was an exception, a fine line between lost and found or the will to belong. Among horses. Stallions, geldings, mares, colts, foals. It did not matter. Breaking into the royal stables had been easy; unfortunately so. She loved a challenge, and Omnium guards who had drunk too much were about as much of a threat as splintered driftwood. To make things even smoother, the certain soldier of the Queensguard whom she’d encountered earlier was nowhere to be seen.
The dappled grey was seventeen hands of bulky yet sinuous muscle and moved with the grace of a carriage horse; perhaps part of the Queen’s personal breeding group. He was a stallion but not purebred, as she could tell his frame was built with some sort of draft breed. Therefore if he was used for breeding, it was only to supply a strong work force.
It only took the lightest touch to receive a response. Her knees barely need apply pressure, and the reins only required the slightest shift of hand. She weaved him in-between racks with ease, and listened to the echo of horse shoe against stone. Pulling him up she leaned forward, no saddle prohibiting her movement to drape herself across the beast. Scratching at pointed ears Elektra spoke in a distant language, laughing under her breath as the stallion seemed to snort his answer. It was because of a prolonged sense of freedom that she let down her guard, enthralled with the animal beneath her.