"Hm. All right."  

Good morning it's scheduled spring delivery of new warhorses for the Crusade from down south where they train them. High-ranking horse guys who are not paladins get first dibs. 

Good morning he sure does. Hmm. Okay.
Should he be using a different selection criteria than usual, or something? Does any of these thousand creatures Speak to his Soul at a hundred yards?

... not really, no.

All right. Well. Identifying the top few can work the same way it always does, looking at their teeth, their legs, whether they flinch or bite if you move weird, &c &c.

Does any of these five selected creatures Speak to his Soul the way Rowan keeps saying is how she picked her eagle out of a pile of eggs, from, like, two feet.

Hm actually yeah he specifically wants That one. For some reason. Normally he would ignore that feeling as random noise related to having a favorite color or something and not actually useful for anything but apparently that's how it works?

Sure dude all yours here's the acquisitions form. 

Hi there, horse with no name. Why are you special? 

im horse! hi. hello. friendly headbonk. 

You ... sure are... horse. Okay. Sure. Let's... hm.

Let's go visit home, actually. 

The magic light over the mantel glows green when Avaryne in particular teleports in. (And yellow if it detects anyone else she has with permission specifically instructed it to identify as probably-friendly such as Heleer or Mathriel. Not Marit, who when she asked said that if he were fifth circle, which he cannot confirm or deny he might be, he'd still prefer not to have any systems he doesn't personally control be able to identify him on magical sight. Red for unidentified teleports, which Marit did trigger once and lightly traumatized Security about it when they were way friendlier than they should've been. The Patrickses love Marit and are trying to convince him to marry one of their cousins when the war's over.) 

A little boy races out onto the lawn to hug Avaryne. 

Ack small creature aimed directly at knees. 
The unnamed horse scoots his legs out of the way of Filmore's path, skittering around behind Marshall to peer at the Very Small Human from a safe distance. So small?? Why???? Humans seem unalarmed. Harmless probably! Neat! 

The fast transition from holding an entire fifth-circle spell in your brain to Hug The Baby is kind of a weird one, mentally, but she has practiced it almost as often as the transition from doing that to ducking a javelin aimed at her head, and also likes it much better. baaaaby <3. hug baby. yay. 

"Good heavens, boy, you're taller than me when I was ten," pronounces Marshall, peering at his six-year-old. This is partly because it is somehow a surprise every time even though he has known for years that Filmore is clearly going to be taller than him as an adult-- must be the witch stock, the witches seem to mostly like their men roughly the size, shape, and cleverness of boulders-- but mostly because Filmore looks so pleased with himself every time he says it and it's very cute.

"I'm gonna be BIGGER than a HORSE," says Filmore gleefully. Pauses. Squints around his mother's elbow. "....why's there a horse though." 

"This is my new warhorse. Chevalier-General Arnisant, who is very wise, advised me that I should involve him more in my life, so since you are a very important part of my life I thought I should introduce you to him." 

!!!!!!! he's very important! :D :D 
He must Inspect the horse. Pat the horse. Poke the horse. Hug the horse's knee? Wait no that's not Professional. Pat the horse more. Reach grabby hands for the horse's face, quite a few feet above his head. 

The horse will hold very still, watching the Very Small Human with mild concern. It's so small. 

... small creature wishes to observe his face? S....ure? He will lean his face down for this purpose. 

Filmore has not reached the part of his lessons where he learns what exactly you are supposed to be looking for in a horse's mouth but he industrially Inspects the horse's teeth anyway.

Oh! Yes, okay, this is a normal thing to have happen. Horse will politely submit to Tooth Inspection. He doesn't know what they're looking for so he is blissfully unaware that Filmore doesn't know either. 

While this is occuring, Filmore's tutor will helpfully supply his parents with this month's notes on his progress. 

"Hm!" says Marshall, pleased. "Filmore, I see you've been doing very well." 

:D :D :D 

"I think this deserves a reward, don't you, my dear?" 

Avaryne is ongoingly kind of unclear on the entire concept of incentives as a parenting strategy at any fidelity finer than 'if they suck you gotta kill them' and has taken a posture towards her Perfect Baby to the effect that he gets anything he wants that she can reasonably provide in the like six hours a month she sees him, but she is vaguely aware that Marshall has, like, detailed opinions on how you teach a kid to not suck, and this strategy seems to have produced... Marshall... who's great... so she's basically on board with it. "...yes?" she hazards. 

He loves his wizard so. She is such a way. 

Grin. "Would you like to name the horse, Filmore?" 

:O 
"Yeah!!!"