[PRP] New Beginnings (Ellette x Christian)

[Faithofthefallen]

Ellette scrambled as fast as she could through the roots and underbrush, pushing herself far beyond her limits in an effort to escape the scene that replayed itself over and over in her mind. Her sides heaved and her lungs screamed for breath, she had never been so exhausted. But she needed to prove to herself that she could do this, that she could master the pain and the exhaustion. Master them in a way that she couldn't manage to master the new fear that left her feeling so ashamed.

Every rustling noise or movement made her jump, she shied away from the shadows and was relieved beyond words when she finally reached the edge of the thick forest. She stopped for breath, feeling the suns warm rays caress her back and face. Her light brown coat was dark with sweat and her left foreleg was sticky with blood and stiff with pain. The long gash across her back was shallow but painful, it stung mercilessly.

She felt so vulnerable the word twisted her gut and brought tears of humiliation to her eyes. Her legs folded of their own accord and she collapsed, feeling unable to move another inch foreword. She was unsure of the extent of her injuries, but she found the pain of her physical wounds a welcome distraction from her mental agony. Never before had she been beaten so thoroughly. She felt groggy and nauseous at the sight of her mangled limb. Ellette was a warrior, WAS! her mind screamed, not a healer, but she was sure it should be cleaned somehow. Her visioned swimmed as she scanned the land around her for any sign of water.

She sighed, she doubted her ability to get to her feet even if the water was only feet away, her body was resigned to laying right in this spot until... Perhaps after a short rest..... She rested her head on the soft grass and closed her eyes, shutting out the world and sat up again immediately, his face had swam into view, refreshing her fear.

Her only solace was that there was no one to see her this way; broken, weak...smeared with blood.
 

[Painted Moose]

Christian pushed himself through the dense foliage and swamp of trees, fighting the forest itself to a reach a clearer patch of land. Navigating around the thousands of skinny trees was a difficult task for a careful Soq. For Christian, it was easy. He either knocked them down or bounced off them.

Most of the day carried on like this. His lime green eyes stayed firmly planted forward as the rest of his body was jarred from tree to tree. Jack had told him years ago that a body like his was made for something, though he didn't know what. Christian didn't think so. A physical defect, a blessing; it made no difference when one wanted to avoid life in general. Events in his colthood kept him locked in an eternal limbo of listlessness and self-doubt. Emotions became a thing of the past when there was nothing to feel, but hate.

He tromped through with the sun warming his dark pelt. The feathering around his hooves swayed luschiously amonst the little leaves of smaller bushes. Despite his mental attitude, today was shaping up to be a great day.

Christian paused to sniff the air. Nothing felt right anymore. Instinctively his body tensed for battle as he ventured towards the smell. Blood. And then like that, he saw her.

Battered and torn, a truly broken thing. He approached her and without warning, lowered his horn to her gash to magically ebb away some of the pain.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Heavy footsteps broke through her listless reverie. She felt a jolt of paralyzing fear and tried to remain as still as possible. She could not fight, could barely move, deep down she had known the scent of blood would draw predators but she had hoped she would have more time to try and think of something to save herself.

Perhaps it would think her dead already, some small voice whispered, perhaps it would just go on it's way and leave her alone. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to lie still and quiet her breathing.

Ellette felt a combination of fear and resignation, both completely new feelings for the mare. The reality of her situation hit her as the hoofbeats slowed and drew closer and she felt and angry fire simmer to life in her belly and begin to grow. She couldn't defend herself but she wouldn't spend her last minutes cowering in fear.

Her head swung around and her defiant eyes registered only a mountain of black and white before she felt a cool searing on her back, the stallion's horn was pressed against the tender flesh. The stinging ceased and the fog of exhaustion lifted from her mind, leaving bewilderment in it's stead. She had never encountered anyone who could heal like this before.

Ellette looked up at him, it was a long way, her warm brown eyes met piercing green and softened momentarily, it was almost imperceptible, and quickly replaced with resentment as she realized that she would have died out here had he not come across her. She despised that, at this moment, she needed his help more than she would ever be willing to admit.
She should thank him for his kindness, thank him for finding her out here but all that came out was, "My your a big one aren't you?" He was handsome too, the stray thought bubbled to the surface of her mind and was quickly discarded as irrelevant. She wondered why he would choose to help her, but it seemed like a rude question so she just stared at him speechlessly.

It must be the blood loss that was making her feel so light headed...


 

[Painted Moose]

From behind his curtain of bangs, he saw the eyes of the creature he had helped. She wasn't anything he hadn't expected. A pretty face for a pretty form, but the waning fire in her eyes surprised him.

Christian snorted, shaking his head from side to side to get the blood off his muzzle. What wasn't flicked away was lapped off by his tongue as he slowly cantered his head up. His leonine tail curled up around his thick thigh like a prized serpant.

Passively, he looked back down at her and smirked. "A stones width bigger than you, I suppose." The blood loss worried him. If he had been able to smell it, than surely something far worse than himself was hot on the trail at that very moment. Christian lowered his head to apply the same technique to her leg as her gash. "Walk." It wasn't a question. She either could or couldn't, and he needed to find out soon.  

[Faithofthefallen]

A wave of disgruntled amusement crossed her features as she gazed at him. He lowered the point of his horn to her injured leg and she once again felt that flash of burning cold, this time she watched in astonishment as the torn tissue and flesh knitted together with only a long pale scar as proof that there had even been a wound at all.

At his command she nodded and awkwardly attempted the maneuver that would bring her to her hooves. Her limbs protested, the pain wasn't nearly as raw as it had been moments before but she still felt heavy and sore, her legs protested as she forced them to start working.

Standing took a few tries. Ellette stared at the stallion stonily the entire time, silently daring him to laugh, terrified that she would see pity in his eyes, she couldn't handle pity. Her tough facade and pride were all that kept her from giving up. She was acutely aware of her frailty and hated having a witness to her helplessness..

At last Ellette was able to pull herself to her feet, she was unsteady and wobbled every so often but she felt a warm flush of elation at her success. She glared down at her hooves and managed a few determined paces towards him before her legs gave out and she found herself sprawled at his feet with a mouthful of grass and dirt, she sputtered and sneezed indignantly as his fetlocks tickled her nose. She swore and glared up at him heatedly as though he had had something to do with it.

She was crimson with embarrassment and carefully avoided meeting his eyes, choosing instead to examine cracks forming in the mud caked on her hooves with a newfound interest.

“I don’t think I can on my own…” Ellette admitted quietly and was horrified to find that her throat was tight and the corners of her eyes prickled with unshed tears. She blinked vigorously until the blur was gone, she would NOT cry. Neither could she bring herself to ask for his help.
 

[Painted Moose]

Christian stepped back to allow her the room she needed while still keeping watch for predators. It was pathetic, to say the least. Though he didn't show it, he winced mentally with every attempt and as much knew what the outcome would be.

He didn't show it to her. Christian didn't encourage or belittle, just stood at attention to obvserve. Every once in a while he would nod his head, urging her further and further. When she had herself up, he almost smiled before she took a dive.

He glared down at her like a father to a daughter before moving his hooves away from her. What now, Christian?

When she spoke, he could have rolled his eyes had he not been so resolute to keep her pride. Let her have one thing, he thought. "I didn't think so." The pinto spotted male circled her and dropped down to her side in an ungraceful flop. Christian nudged her foreleg over his neck as he started rooting himself underneath her. "Hop up. We'll save time that way."  

[Faithofthefallen]

Ellette sighed resignedly, "Very well," but her eyes flashed with irritation at being hoisted off the ground like a sack of potatoes. She decided it was best to hold her tongue on the matter as she awkwardly maneuvered herself until her stomach rested across him, her legs dangling on either side of his broad back.

She felt his muscles bulge as he stood and the ground dropped away,making her feel a bit queasy.

Ellette couldn't read this stallion, he was stern and aloof but he could have left her anytime had he wished it, instead he had chosen to carry her to-
where?

She hadn't even thought to ask where they were headed, she didn't even know his name now that she thought of it... She felt a twist of panic as she stared at the back of his glossy black mane.

She felt foolish and ashamed almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind. Here he was going out of his way to help a mare he knew nothing about and all she could do was second guess his intentions. She would be dead by now if he intended it, not swung over his back.

"Thank you, things would not have gone well for me without your help. I am called Ellette"


 

[Painted Moose]

Christian grunted under her weight and rolled his shoulders to resituated her to a secure position before standing. His lime green eyes rolled to the sky above, taking a deep breath for clarity before walking. "It's going to rain."

No more than he said it than the sky began to weap. The tree cover helped block out the worst of it, but the water made travel slick. His soppy bangs swamped his eyes, making it all, but impossible to see. It wouldn't do any good to blow them up, so he trudged on instinct alone.

When she spoke, his only response was a curl of his leonine tail around her hindleg and a murmured, "Christian." The path infront of him slopped upward, and on a whim, he followed it, smiling lightly at what he saw. From a distance the cave looked enormous, but the closer her got, the more he realized neither one of them would fit, so he walked on.

"What happened to you?"  

[Faithofthefallen]

Ellette glanced towards the sky at his word and was awarded by a fat drop of rain landing directly on her nose. She sneezed and muttered darkly as the clouds broke overhead. The rainfall washed away the worst of the grime from earlier for which she was thankful but it also made Christian's smooth back slippery and she found herself awkwardly curling her front hooves around his belly to brace herself as he stubbornly pushed foreword through the storm.

She peered around his head, trying to get a good look at his face, particularly those striking eyes only to find them hidden by the dark curtain of his sopping wet bangs. She laughed softly and nosed them out of the way, holding them back to clear his vision. She found herself relaxing against him, the raindrops were icy and accompanied by a chill wind that howled through the trees and his warmth was welcome.

She felt a tingling sensation dance up her spine as his tail wrapped lightly around her leg and she smiled briefly into his mane. The smile faded at at his question and she squeezed her eyes closed.

"I was attacked, by a skinwalker." She gritted her teeth at the memory, shaking with rage and fear. "I was as foolish as a colt Christian, so sure of myself and overconfident in my abilities that I traveled openly at night through unfamiliar territory." Her body relaxed and she sighed, a great wave of weariness overtaking her. "I almost lost my life for my troubles. What good is a warhorse who can't even protect herself?"  

[Painted Moose]

Christian grunted when she curled her hooves up, instinctively sucking his gut in only to have to further. It left a brand on his mind to have hooves touching him, if only because of the nightmare that had been his childhood.

At first, he tried to duck out of her way, but once he could see, he actually smile. "Thank you." Through the rain he sought out another cave, this one further from the path and albeit harder to reach, but at least he knew it was large enough. The stallion kicked up his hooves to cross a bulging creek, splashing through the water and the muck before trudging up another hill.

"Your right, you were foolish." He couldn't argue with a solid point, so he bypassed trees instead. "Their dangerous, but anyone would have trouble with them, so at least in that, you are not to blame." His eyes looked back at her face and rain soaked curls. He didn't smile, for it was a serious moment and she needed to hear the truth, not be coddled.

He felt the change before he knew it. A moment ago his hooves were sinking into muddy ground, and the next they were clipping on stones with the rain mercifully gone. They'd finally made it.

Christian carefully tucked his legs underneath him, angling himself to one side so she could slip off.