Яikyn

Almost as suddenly as the race begins, it ends.

There is some warning as he calls back behind him towards me, the wind gnawing at his words and making it hard to catch them. I’m pretty sure he asked me if I can fight, which I’m not sure how to answer – I’m sure I can. Momma has taught me some things, but even she says I can’t learn anything too useful until I’m bigger, leaving me to play with the other kids to glean what I can from play. This colt is older than me, and probably can fight to some extent, having had more time to practice than me, and I open my mouth to answer only to silently curse myself as he comes to a halt and my little ears pin to my head in annoyance at his brashness and sudden change of games.

Really, its that I’m not entirely comfortable with this proposition now that its quite apparent that is what he asked me. The way the other colt’s eyes gleam even as he playfully swats the air in front of me sends warning signs into my core, but it’s a tempting lure, one that also sends throbs down into the crux of my being, a primal impulse I don’t understand and won’t for another few years. It sends a pulse through my heart and suddenly its throbbing inside my chest, sending more insistent whispers through my brain that tug at the cords of war bound fast to my psyche, etched into the blood of my forefathers since our long ago birth to this world.

"Yes," I answer, surprisingly resolute now that my fear has been quelled by a deep desire to oblige him in the scary game, whispering that maybe I misread the flicker of something repugnant in his eyes, that maybe it had been something in his thoughts or that I had done to offend him in the game we played previously.

The smell of sweat touches my nose and I snort instinctually, enjoying the way it burns against my muzzle, all fears of the strange child who is much larger than me cast aside as I stamp a hoof down in a return of the challenge, my body springing upwards and bounding a step forward on my splayed hind legs as I bat at the air at chest level were I to be standing.

I meet his eyes with the burning gold of my own, feeling the same burning desire rising up within myself that has lured him into the game to begin with.

@[Reginald]

in every heart a hole