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12-27-2012, 03:11 PM
There was only the sound of hoofbeats. Staccato, deliberate, perfectly timed. Each one fell in after the other like a familiar song, a pattern, a sudden spring downpour—the thick, wet drops falling flat on tree leaves with fat sounding splats. Aelius did not allow himself to think. Aelius did not allow himself to wander. His strong walk onward was all that he allowed himself. It was all he had left. One-two, one-two. He kept his proud Spanish head low, his extraordinarily long horn—twisted bone and ivory, two halves of a whole, shiny and polished and rough and basic—pointed outward, while his washed out grey-blue eyes looked straight ahead. His breath came in paced grunts making him sound like the animal he was—but at least he was in control. Aelius’s life was about control. Control over himself, control over others, control over everything. He never allowed himself to lose control. Until he did. The blood staining his once like-a-new-penny bronze chestnut coat and the first six inches of his horn was proof of what happened when he let his tenuous grasp on himself and his animal nature slip. He could still remember their screams as he drove his horn inside their defenseless bodies; right through the side of their stomach, twisting his horn and letting the blood gush out when he pulled back. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been fighting for… His father, he knew, and they had been those mutations, the equines and Pegasus that Aelius’s kingdom had kept as slaves. But did that make them less than Aelius? Just because they were born without the traditional trappings of a unicorn, the noblest breed—the leonine tail, the slight beard, the cloven hooves, and most importantly, the horn—did that truly make them less? Aelius’s own tail, a perfect representation of his heritage, swished in hopelessness. Stop. He commanded himself. There is only the sound of hoofbeats. Only the sound…
He didn’t know how long he traveled for. He knew that the scenery had changed from damp and dark to lighter, greener, fresher—different than the woods of his home, the woods that he knew. The birds sang here as they did at home, but it wasn’t the ravens and crows calling out death; actual songbirds trilled their gentle tunes freely. They were freer than Aelius had ever known anything to be. Rabbits bounded in the underbrush, fat and happy, not sickly and starved and looking over their shoulder for foxes and wolves as he’d always known them to be. Aelius felt open, exposed. There was no fog here to mask him, no damp smell of rot to breathe in. The dry earth of the trail did not mask his footfalls as the wet leaves of home did—the amount of noise he was making with his heavy, muscular Andalusian body made the stallion uncomfortable. Aelius did not understand. He couldn’t wrap his mind around this place, so full of meaningless joy. He felt like an intruder, and outsider, someone who could never belong—in this happy forest, free and airy, he stood tall and dark, bloodstained, young but already lost to his sins as well as the sins of his father. At a more sedate pace than he had originally adopted, he continued forward. His light eyes shifted side to side in suspicion as he moved, his horn remained lowered, his lion-like tail raised and alert, much like a housecat’s would be on the prowl. I suppose I am on the prowl, in a way, he mused, if by prowl you mean pacing back and forth in front of the bars of my cage. My mental cage.
He didn’t know how long he traveled for. He knew that the scenery had changed from damp and dark to lighter, greener, fresher—different than the woods of his home, the woods that he knew. The birds sang here as they did at home, but it wasn’t the ravens and crows calling out death; actual songbirds trilled their gentle tunes freely. They were freer than Aelius had ever known anything to be. Rabbits bounded in the underbrush, fat and happy, not sickly and starved and looking over their shoulder for foxes and wolves as he’d always known them to be. Aelius felt open, exposed. There was no fog here to mask him, no damp smell of rot to breathe in. The dry earth of the trail did not mask his footfalls as the wet leaves of home did—the amount of noise he was making with his heavy, muscular Andalusian body made the stallion uncomfortable. Aelius did not understand. He couldn’t wrap his mind around this place, so full of meaningless joy. He felt like an intruder, and outsider, someone who could never belong—in this happy forest, free and airy, he stood tall and dark, bloodstained, young but already lost to his sins as well as the sins of his father. At a more sedate pace than he had originally adopted, he continued forward. His light eyes shifted side to side in suspicion as he moved, his horn remained lowered, his lion-like tail raised and alert, much like a housecat’s would be on the prowl. I suppose I am on the prowl, in a way, he mused, if by prowl you mean pacing back and forth in front of the bars of my cage. My mental cage.
