Something was bothering the shit outta Chico.

There we were, standing in the shadow of the tree line, watching as, right in front of us, a herd meeting was being called. We watched as all kinds of horses crawled out the woodwork: big and small, male and female, all kinds of different shapes and colors and varying degrees of roughness. And we were just watching them come, watching them pay their respects to their King and Queen, watching and noticing how none of them seemed to be huge and white and blue eyed. (Well, okay, one of them was all of those things, but it wasn’t the kind of whiteness I was looking for).

Well, I guess I was watching. Chico had his powerful owl’s eyes trained on the winged Queen from where he perched on my poll, analyzing her features and bearing, finder her to be a finely-spun snowflake. But it was more than that, and I could feel the growing frustration as he watched her, cuz he was so fucking sure he had seen her before. And I’m like—Bro. Cool it. We ain’t seen her ass before. Just drop it. I mean, I didn’t remember her at all, so it wasn’t really grating on me like it was grating on Cheek. He ignored me, cuz I was the one who forgot faces and names, and he prided himself for knowing every face he had ever seen, and he swore-for-lord he knew that fucking face but he couldn’t place it for the life of him.

It’s fine, Cheek. Let it go.

He wouldn’t.

So I shrugged and I left him to his frustration as I turned my attention back to the meeting. The longer I watched, the more something began to grow in me, and I wasn’t able to place it. It was—it was sad, but not really, kinda like serious and pensive, liquid and painful right in my gut. As I thought about the feeling, I realized with a shock this was the first time in four years that I had attended a herd meeting like this. Four years. Back when I was some tiny squirt of a kid falling asleep at my Bro’s knees, while Ma and Auntie stood at the head of the Executioners and the citizens of the Grey, addressing them the same way as Tembovu and that white bitch was doing right this second.

Crying?

Chico broke from his agitated concentration to notice how my eyes were beginning to bubble a little bit. Nah, not crying, I told him, taking a deep breath, Just tears. I realized the feeling in my breast was nostalgia and it was hitting me fast and hard, and I guess I hadn’t been prepped to deal with it. That’s what memories can do to ya; even if they’re not sad memories, devastating memories, they can still pull the emotion up from the depths of your muscles and slap the shit out you if you let it.

I leaned against a tree while Chico zpnick!ed into his tiny lizard form, holding himself tight against my skull as she shimmied down my brow, plopping himself right below my cheek and starting to lip up the salty shit that leaked. Jeez, I muttered, letting him do his thing while I watched a family gather under my nose—feeling that strong, strong undercurrent that told me, point-blank, that I wasn’t a part of it.

[Ros is just sort of creepin' on the edges :B]

"talk"