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With every slip of breath comes strain of limp muscle and the sweat. Dawn works cloudy froth under my mane, between my legs, leeching the moisture from my mouth, my eyes with intangible suction. I plea, rolling my gaze to the rusted sky wishing there was water and soft grass to casket this body. A piece of me is lost in every stride, my conscious drifting, my vision succumbing to black holes and milky film. Grit grinds against my hooves, dust swirling through my throat to my lungs. Limply I stagger, nearly meeting the fate of broken stone until the slender shoulder catches mine, firmly stabilizing the possible fall. We pause and her voice fills my ears with the best sound: not much longer.
"Thank you," drips from the dust-caked mouth, croaking itself to life. I can't look at her because I pity her. What am I to bring home to a needy herd suffering from its own ills? I am the illness. I am the tamed creature capable of nothing but the weight of a rider, the beckon of stirrups against sensitive sides, the warm touch of something most have never witnessed. What am I to this mountain but a valley of bones? She shouldn't have to carry the burden of me upon her shoulder like this when I can't carry myself.
My thoughts consume me like the air burning ragged in my lungs. The guilt plagues blacker than my weak vision, swirling around like embarrassment in my hollow gut. If only it really was only a little longer. If only I could believe her selfless voice and the false promise it concealed. This would not be a little longer. I would attach to the herd's priority like a foal to a teat, drain their defense and their time, when the feathers of the moon could have collected this useless, cowardly body without the energy it takes to think sorrow. But somehow this carrying shoulder cares enough to bear the weight of a starving heart like mine. Thank you is not enough, I realize. But after a year of travel I am too expired to do anything else.
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