Déodat sank into a numb stupor, lulled by the steam and scalding water into a world of restless dreams colored raw and red, and echoing with the cries of the dead and dying. He lingered between the state of uneasy sleep and restless daydreams, eyelids trembling like the murmur of butterfly wings as he struggled to stay in the waking world, but his head drooped and his lower lip slackened like a child who had exhausted all its energy during afternoon playtime. Fever consumed the red stallion, sapping the life from his veins and the fire from his heart as if it were poison, and the pressure swelled in his head until it seemed his thoughts could no longer fit in his mind.
It would pass.
Or so he hoped. He didn't know if the bubbling spring water would help, but it brought him a sense peace and tranquility that life blatantly refused him as of late, and the warmth settled into the nooks and crannies of his aching bones and his feverish shivers ceased. In his restless dreams, fleeting images of family, friends, and the blue mountains faded in and out of existence.
First, his mother's sweet wildflower scent overwhelmed him, contrasting sharply to the exotic war paint coated in thick lines across the bridge of her nose, and then the colors faded and swirled and reformed into his father's stern, unyielding lips—always thin with frowns and disapproval. And lastly, his youngest nephew. A thin line of blood trickled from a soft, vulnerable mouth. The boy had been no older than yearling. Then, the mountains reared into the sky—vast, gray, and cold.
Suddenly, he plummeted from the sky and plunged into a scalding ocean.
Déodat floundered in the spring as water flooded his nose, coughing with thick hacks that wracked his body as his spine snapped straight and his muscles groaned with resistance as he heaved himself from the spring shallows to a standing position. His weak legs trembled, but he forced himself to stand tall. Water dribbling from his soaked chin as he narrowed his eyes in a scalding glare that nearly rivaled the temperature of the spring water. Almost instantaneously, his dark gaze fixed on a mare the stood near the water's edge, gazing at him with a curious expression. He snorted with annoyance.
"Can't a fellow get some privacy?" he snapped heatedly, although he was more upset with himself than anything for allowing her to sneak up on him. He shook his head, wild black hair, thick with snarled tangles and dreadlocks slapping wetly against the thick muscle of his neck. He peered at the stranger more closely, uncaring if he made the girl uncomfortable with his open scrutinizing.
"Well then? Be quick and speak up, girl," he said sharply, failing miserably in his pitiful attempt to rein in the sudden flare of his hot-headed temper.
She was plain, but not in an unpleasant way. There was something about her eyes, and the way her soft expression brought light to the hollows of her face caused the coiled knots in his shoulder to relax. Beauty was not something Déodat cared for in a mare—he far preferred strength and spirit over the quality of one's appearance. That being said, he didn't particularly care for Helovia's plethora of outlandish creatures with elaborate designs and colors, and so he was quite pleased with her modest bay coat.
Beauty did not win wars, after all.
But she remained incredibly collected and unfazed by his gruff demeanor, something that he found both vexing and admirable. Her voice was just as gentle and soft as he'd imagined it to be, and it reminded him of the murmur of dry wind through meadow grass, or the sweet song of meadow larks at dawn. She wished to help him? He blinked in surprise, and his lips pursed in a thoughtful, confused frown. Regaining some sense of civility, Déodat merely sniffed disdainfully instead of snapping at her again. "You cannot," he growled resolutely. Weariness suddenly plagued his body, and he sank into the steaming shallows once more with a heavy grunt of both pleasure and pain.
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