Clank, clank, clank.
The sound had become so familiar to this stallion’s ears that they hardly seemed to perceive it any longer. The chains wrapped around his neck and legs to hold up the armor rattled with each step. At times he would hear this sound and be tossed into a memory of the days when he used to be a warrior. He would again smell the scent of blood and sweat; hear the sounds of blades grinding against one another and the pings of arrows as they were loosed from a bow. Screams of the wounded would echo in his ears blocking out the sound that first led him to recall such things. In his mind’s eye he could again see the battle field with such clarity that he trembled. This would influence him to question whether or not those clashes were as long ago as he thought. Inhaling deeply he stopped at the shore of a lonely lake and peered into the water at his reflection. Blazing green eyes stared ominously back at him and the sun glinted off the plates of metal upon his chest. In appearance he was seemingly the same knight he had been back then. Even so, he knew within his mind something had changed. His thirst for a rush of adrenaline had been replaced with a thirst to escape. He no longer wished to endure the images that his past had forever burned into his memories.
Lifting his head away he snorted and turned his back to the darkened waters. It was pitiful when a knight cursed his own past. If anything he should have been honored to have been granted such and exciting life. He had learned many valuable lessons that had prevented him from making stupid mistakes. Lessons that even now held meaning and truth. Back then they had helped him remain alive so that he may be here now, able to reflect upon them. He had learned proper etiquette, skills of combat, the difference between right and wrong and how to keep reasonably calm in high stress situations. He owed everything he had to one stallion, Ryeland. He was the oldest of all the steeds and had been the one to endow Callan with the title of a knight.
