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He was a whirlwind of tangled black mane and silver hair, chewing up the earth beneath his cleft hooves, a chaotic spirit suddenly restrained by the graceful curves of young flesh. Carnesîr had been raised up to be admired, to be noticed, to have eyes devour him. The colt, bordering on manhood, had been born of kings and queens, created from a uniting of two ancient, proud houses, prepped and groomed for leadership for the collision of two families. They taught him to crave applause, approval, ovation, acclaim; he tried to love compliments lavished on him, tried so hard to work for more praise. Why didn't he like it? Why was it that when they exalted him, he felt only the weight of their expectations? So slowly he became accustomed to it; no longer was he a stranger to the burden of societal conventions pressing down on his shoulders, but never had he quite fit the enormous shoes they had told him to wear.
But when he ran, escaped, fled, their eyes piercing his soul, whispers of traitor ringing amok, those expectations he so despised slid off his shoulders. And suddenly, he had no reason, no sensible explanation to keep living. Without the binding, seizing, crushing horses waiting for him to do something spectacular, to be a hero, to become a legacy, he was lost, fragmented, splintered, falling apart at the seams like a well-read book. So Carnesîr fashioned for himself something to keep him living. For those who had been lost before him, unimportant, names forgotten for nobody cared, he desired to keep them. It was not long until he had a wealth of names, and every morning he ran over them. It was not long before the stories in his head began to blur together, no matter how hard he tried to keep them separate. Sometimes, they stood out. Sometimes, they slipped away despite his efforts- and efforts they were, for he threw himself into the task with a savage and raw passion he had never felt before.
It was noble of him, his attempts to keep the lost alive, not that he realized it.
But what was prominent in his memory, despite the numerous days of traveling that had occurred since the day of the revelation, was the story, a snippet of a history, that Onni told him. It chased around his head, bouncing off his skull, tearing up a storm, gnawing at his heart stubbornly. Unicorns from the North marched on my home. Missing one of her wings. Your new home seeks to pull angels from the sky and tear off their wings Swirling, twirling, dancing, falling like snow. Cold on his tongue, giving him a headache. He wanted truth, hard facts that were straight-forward and brutally honest.
North he moved, and soon he was entering the cold chambers of his new home.
Stones clattered beneath his hooves, falling, tumbling, to their demise. Up to the lip of the valley he went, moving too quickly. Sweat gleamed in pearls on his damp coat, sparkling in the light of the late spring sun making its arduous way into the azure dome of the sky. His breath was soft and fast, lithe chest expanding and contracting. Beneath him, the familiar basin shone, illuminated in pale gold of the frail sunlight. Yellow glittered on the emerald grass, shone in the wisps of steam curling off the hot mineral waters. For a moment, he just breathed, drinking in the mountain air with joy, worries chased away by the mid-morning light. And then he plunges down the slope, reckless, heedless of the dangers presented by looming pine tree branches which rake at his unmarred pelt, needles tangling in his thick mane.
When the ground levels he slows to a breathless halt, a hint of a smile on his face, the morning run having shaken out the aches in his exhausted muscles from relentless traveling.
If only those questions planted in his mind by the angel could be chased away as easily as the pains.
The card games and ease with the bitter salt of blood
I was in but I want out
My mother's love is choking me
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