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 Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:03 pm
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How many months had it been, since Seyx's world had been turned on its head? How many dozens of nights had he spent on his own, staying silently in one place as he hadn't done in years? Being on his own? Being...responsible? How many times had he gone through the motions of his physical therapy, feeling the pain transition from crippling to stiffening to mild, from a shock to his system to an expected part of his life? How long had it been since he had been a relatively carefree stallion, throwing himself off of cliffs to see how close to the ground he could get before taking flight? He'd been so reckless then; known he was being reckless, even, and hadn't cared. Usually. But would that have changed if something had gone wrong?
It had taken an army of Kalona to shatter the dream of those days; something neither Seyx nor his best friend and inseparable companion Lessia had remotely anticipated. And the events of that day...even now, however many months later, it was hard for Seyx to believe that everything had unfolded so fast. One minute, they had been water-striding, the next, he had been desperately intervening between Lessia and an angry mob apparently out for her blood, and the next after that, he, Lessia, and the angry mob were all fighting for their lives. Seyx didn't remember all of the battle; he'd passed out after the Kalona mare who'd been in the process of ripping him to bits unexpectedly collapsed on him. In a twisted way, he was grateful for that; he was nearly crushed to death, true, but the mare's weight had staunched his bleeding. Plus, she'd no longer been attacking him, and her body hid him from others who might potentially have wanted to finish what she'd started.
But he remembered enough. Remembered the blood, and the pain; his own was most vivid, but he had seen things that day...terrible things. Things that still haunted his nightmares, causing him to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. The physical pain had faded, but the mental pain remained as fresh as it had ever been. He didn't even know what it felt like to sleep peacefully any more; even now, months later, he could do nothing to free his mind from the horrible memories of that single day.
~~
It was early, not even true dawn. The first weak beams of light shone through the trees down into Seyx's clearing, but they were blearly and unclear, rather like Seyx himself. He'd woken hours ago, gripped by his most common dream: a red-eyed Kalona, viciously attacking an unprotected foal. He'd woken in a cold sweat, unable to fall back asleep. He wished that was less common. But since he knew he was awake, he'd settled into his 'morning' routine; breakfast, a drink, and then on to physical therapy. His leg responded beautifully these days, but his wing...
Glancing back at the crabbed angle of his wing, Seyx let out a soft sigh. In spite of his best efforts, the wing stubbornly refused to straighten out; at this rate, it would be years before he flew again.
If he ever did, a soft voice whispered in his mind. Perhaps it was time he faced the inevitable; perhaps he was grounded for life.
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