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06-24-2012, 06:16 PM
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Step. Step. Step. Step. Blood. Head up. Nostrils flare - white - and the sweet metallic taste slides down his gullet. Shivers ripple outward. Golden eyes blink. Mother. The smell and the word become synonymous - became synonymous so long ago he doesn’t even realize the contradiction. Mother is black and sweetness, the cloying sweetness of rot. Mother is punishment. Mother is calling him. He knows. Hooves like sledgehammers turn to follow a path known only to him and to the others. It winds like a secret through the trees, all smell, and at the end of it he thinks to find more death. A bird calls in the trees behind him, and flight bangs one meaty shoulder into a nearby tree. Recoiling, Vincent breathes into the dark. Something behind him runs across its own path; the air leaps with the crackling of dead leaves and the stallion shakes his head. I’m not afraid, he thinks. Don’t be afraid. He walks on. He arrives late. Vincent finds the others gathered there already: Evers, Casimir, Archibald. His twin’s deep voice resounds through earth and tree alike, and Vincent’s heart beats heavy with the noise. His own throat trembles with response - wordless, haphazard. Like an avalanche he thunders up into the clearing where he stops, his yellow eyes wide, and finds Mother at the centerpiece of this display. The colt kneeling below her is a new face; Vincent’s ears fly forward as he moves to join his twin, the only safe face in this gathering of beasts. Maybe if he’s quiet, Mother won’t know he’s late. Maybe if he hadn’t shouted.... but he didn’t think of it before. He shuffles, anxious, and presses his side toward Archibald. It doesn’t matter, any of it. She will be distracted by the newborn. He will learn its name. Then they will all leave, and he’ll find a dark place to hide. |
