The Events Of This Morning.

When I awoke this morning, I was at first under the impression that the boy from last night had left sometime in the night. There was little trust between us, I suppose, which led to ‘him’ hiding.

I use those quotations because, while at the time I was under the impression that Blair was male, I have since been gently corrected.

Blair, while in possession of a biological gender, identifies as being outside of the gender binary, which I find fascinating. I have yet to question xir about it further for fear of being offensive.

In any case, veering back to what occurred earlier, I found Blair re-shoeing xir horse outside the washrooms. Xir shirt was still so terribly bloodied that, whatever its color had originally been, it had been dyed a sickly rust-brown.

Xe had definitely washed it, though, likely in the sinks, and washed ximself as much as was possible as well.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

Blair gave me a cautious once-over, and nodded in return. Xe hadn’t spoken much last night, either, only really enough to tell me xir name.

“Do you know what your plan is, from this point on?”

Blair took a while to answer.

“Ain’t many places I can wander ‘round with a horse and still be inconspicuous. These guns, the police’ll rope me in fast.”

Xe tensed strangely while speaking and murmured something about a ‘poor choice of words’. I chose not to question.

“Are you from around here, originally?”

“No. Ran here, but I ain’t running no more. I got people to look for. Maybe South.”

“Maybe we’ll be going the same way. I’m getting out of the state, if I can.”

Blair gave me a hard look, and xir horse must have picked up on xir tension. He was thrashing his head a bit in an anxious manner, and Blair withdrew xir hands quickly, as the horse had started to move his feet.

His hooves looked unnatural, to me, and they appeared to be doing considerable damage to the carpet.

“If you’ll forgive me for saying, you look like you have a spotted past and could use a friend,” I tried to explain my reasoning. “From what I know of myself, we have those things in common.”

Blair kept those dark eyes on me, and for a moment, I was convinced xe was looking straight through me. Xe appeared to see right through my own confusion, gauging with certainty what kind of man I was.

“Y’seem decent enough to me, and I could use a favor. I’d be grateful to you.”

“What sort of favor?”

Blair got to xir feet, and gestured to ximself up and down.

“Can’t set foot in public lookin’ like this, now can I?”