The stallion snorted wildly, his nostrils flaring as he lunged to the side. The spaded tail drew across his side, and he felt his anger grow as the pain pierced his self-control.
He let out a cry of rage and anguish, memories lacing with the pain as the black-hearted mare's vicious taunts toyed with his grip of reality.
"I.... this was made for you." Evelyn's words were short, halting- a parody of her once-fluent melody. She would not meet his eyes. The speech (so few words now warranted such a term for the damages mare) was accompanied by a quick gesture- removing a worn-cloth bag from about her neck, setting it at the hooves of her only youngest son.
The edges of the cloth fluttered open as a gentle wind revealed what lay within- an artfully crafted silver necklace, the workmanship of a master jeweler... a single lavender stone set in its center.
The son of Evelyn grunted as a cruel hit expelled the air from his lungs. "Such a silly little trinket for a stallion!" Mocking laughter. "Maybe you're not a stallion at all!" A snarl curled the stallion's lips, flat-surfaced teeth that were fit only for grazing revealed by the unusual action. That 'silly little trinket' was the only gift his mother saw fit to bestow upon him... a silent apology, a reminder that it was not he she shied from rather the manner of his birth- something over which he had no control.
She turned, and walked away.
"Mother!" He called, though he knew she would never answer to that name from him. "M... Evelyn!"
The form of the dappled-grey mare faded into the night.
Or was he fading from consciousness? He fought to regain control, to alter the course of at least one event in his lifetime. So much has been beyond him, so many things that he could do nothing about... he would not let this she-devil rob him of the opportunity to see his mother smile.
Some day. Some day, she'd smile... for him.
He hung on to that thought as he spun, his powerful haunches kicking out at the female.
It went against everything he was, to lash out at a female in this manner- yet her attacks had twisted something inside him, and he no longer saw her as one of the gender that is to be protected and cherished.
She was the enemy.
It may have been childish, to label others 'friend' or 'foe'... but his pain was that of a child hearing his Mother being taunted, the pain of a child crying out for a Mother's love that would never come... a child, grown, listening to the only semblance of warmth from the one being he wanted the most from that had graced his childhood mocked as his body was beaten.
No more. His resolve solidified, he lashed out again, aiming for the heart.
Reply
