#fancy tag

Antonio weakly shakes his head, looking away and closing his eyes in a wince. It hurts. It all hurts. How could he let João see him like this? What an embarrassment. The only one who was supposed to know how weak he was... was his own self. Yet here he was being picked apart by European vultures like some sort of corpse. His body shakes a little as he labors for another breath... or maybe he is crying. It's hard to tell. Something about having the Portuguese man here tending to his wounds hurts him worse than the injuries gained over the past five years ever could.

She uses me as a pillow when she is tired because I taught her Primate Language for 'love' = a physical hug, a kiss, so now she rests her head on my shoulders and squeezes me against her neck sometimes and will enjoy and request that I wrap my arms around her nose. She will place her nose inches from my face and stare at me directly in the eyes looking as cute as possible until she gets the required amount of nose kisses. If I don't deliver the nose kisses she will become frustrated and place her nose more against and near my face while still looking at me pointedly. She can sense when I have had a bad day and if I am on her back, saddle on, while she sense such when I ask her to canter she will hand gallop instead and not slow down and do Serious Dressage until I start giggling, in which case, because she loves the sound of human laughter or singing, she will give a final burst of speed and then slow to a mild walk as if nothing happened, looking proud and full of herself and contented. She loves bananas but won't eat most foods horses as a species enjoy, so we flavor her supplements with flower oil so they taste like pasture flowers or she won't eat all of them and be healthy. She HATES gingersnaps and refused to eat anything from my hand without skeptically sniffing it thoroughly while looking at me accusatorialy after I fed her One gingersnap cookie ONCE for a whole month after said incident She also hates strawberries and flung the one I tried to feed her at a high velocity against the wall in disgust using her prehensile lips. She does not like having her mane braided because "Its ITCHY" and she strongly does not like being bathed with soap or asked to stand still for more than around 3 seconds. She is terrified of tractors, wheelbarrows, and noises above her head, but is very brave and usually tries to protect me from such scary things as well. She carried me home when I was crying insensate because another rider had bullied me and I didn't direct her at all. She likes having her mane and tail brushed, but that is the only grooming she enjoys. She is perpetually upset at her own reflection in the mirror because it doesn't exhale slowly and repeatedly back at her (horse body language for hello), so she finds it very antisocial and rude and Offensive. One time I hid under her head in her species' blind spot when she was greeting the mirror version of herself hopefully, and exhaled, and she seemed relieved and happy that this horse in the mirror was actually being polite to her for once. She is very judgemental towards those she doesn't view as competent, such as riders not experienced in dressage but especially horses who buck or bolt or toss their riders. She will bend her neck around to watch them cut up with a sour and judgemental look on her face.