stanza II, line III :: Ride Ten Thousand Days and Nights

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Horses. Finally, they came to a world that had a modicum of sense in its travel arrangements.

"Ah, Kuro-bun! Look at all the pretty horses!"

Kurogane snatched the map that the magician had been waving around and looked over it. Local lore said that a phoenix had made its home in the desert cliffs above the ridge, and that one of its feathers was different from the others, magical. And so, following the typical procedure whenever a reports of something mysterious was turned up, the group set out to find it.

"Kurogane-san, they all look so nice and friendly!" Sakura laughed, as a stallion nuzzled her with its head. Syaoran kept quiet but gave a small chuckle when a horse's head bumped him as well.

Kurogane, though, frowned. It wasn't because he disliked horses; on the contrary, he thought that they were the most efficient and least traumatizing way to travel (except maybe for the dragonflies-- those had been pretty fun once you learned not to fall out of the sky while riding one). It was the sentiment behind the statement that irked him.

They'd tried taking a roadtrip once, since he had found that his dragonfly's controls were similar to that of a car. However, not only did they end up lost, attacked by bugs, and tired, he'd also found that his body, not being used to the high speeds and bumpiness of the roads, got very ill when traveling very long.

"Kuro-run will do better on a horse, I'm sure of it!"

Kurogane's eyes narrowed at Fai over the edge of the map. Tsh. Someday they'd thank him for making sure that they didn't up riding ten thousand days and nights looking for the damn feather. His stomach churned at the thought.

"Let's just ride already." He replied, to all of them, and mounted his horse (a black stallion, no surprise there) in one fluid swing. He glanced back, his anger mollified as the other three experienced difficulty getting into their saddles. He urged his horse into a light trot effortlessly, quite pleased with himself for the days he'd spent learning to ride back in Nihon.

"Come on! Don't go so slow or this'll take forever."

"Ah, Kurogane is so mean!"

"Shut up, pork bun."