Swift wasn't quite sure how to react. Having one's mane stroked felt good, much like when he was a cub and his mother would clean his fur. But it was also a bizarrely intimate thing for a stranger, of another species no less, to be doing. 
"Thank you," he said in the end, "But please..."

[b]CRASH[/b]

Swift turned toward the commotion with the rest of the hall, in time to see wooden splinters flying everywhere. The man who had been struck fell to the floor. He soon got up and advanced angrily on a girl nearby. Swift rushed forward, and stood between them, facing the man. Instead of saying something rational and trying to get to the bottom of the situation, he simply roared into the man's face.