Somewhere nearby, the thrum of conversation between two, maybe three horses held the little colt’s lonesome interest. One horse was softly spoken and guarded; there was a thick and almost incomprehensible accent soaking her words and her voice was shaded with melancholy. It worked as a barrier he supposed, to keep someone at a secure distance.
Druid’s hollowed flank flinched where a fly caught its breath, savouring the bitter taste of its host’s crusted sweat. He did not catch her name when a stallion requested it; the colt’s ears did not easily grip the strange slur as it was presented. The same stallion spoke again then and his voice rose offensively above the general drone filling the air. The young horse’s ears flickered uneasily and he shifted his weight backwards, long bony hind legs stiffening in response. He did not shrink back into the shadows though yet; he was practiced now in the art of estimating proximity, and the stallion whose voice boomed beyond all reason had created an illusion of sorts.

The colt’s stomach churned and the noise as it rumbled vibrated the very base of Druid’s long throat. It hungered for the thick warm comfort of milk, starved of nutrients and deprived the pleasure from greed. He did not react though, as the feeling recurrent and a thirst he had failed to quench time and time again. He persisted with his distraction, pearly eyes watching that direction, unblinking and numb of all sense.

The third voice which he filtered out from the rest could have been a mistaken addition as it was also quiet and very nearly brooding in pitch. He matched its trend into the flow of the conversation though regardless, and it seemed to fit well enough. It was much like the first- the unmistakable gentleness of tone that his mother had (or what he distantly remembered of her), it was feminine. This horse spoke not of herself like the stallion before her, instead describing a place- a green (lush was the term she used) pasture flanked by patchy thicket and woodland, all sprawled around the jagged feet of a towering mountain range. Druid found no pictures to decorate this story though, no matter how passionate and devoted the mare’s story became, all he could envisage was suffocatingly lonely black.

The three continued at length but the colt became restless, unable to find any fantastical, placement into any such talk, and so slid backwards slightly along the cold rigidness of the oak as though detaching himself.

The cold Orangemoon breeze came once more to swirl teasingly around the elevated hang of his motionless head- still his ears remained erect, positioned as high as the colt could manage to catch even the slightest thud of hoof against loam. The dribble of air carried across it’s back a fresh clutter of scents, the thick and smothering (because his smell was finetuned and sensitive, compensating for his lack of sight) aromas of the same horses upon whom he had been eavesdropping perhaps- he would never know. A sharp declining snort burst from his nostrils. Druid was tiring quickly, the energy from what grass and foliage he found to eat was hardly suitable to sustain the growth of a foal.

Moments passed, before the offering of a new voice broke the cool emptiness as it closed quickly around the colt. He had not before found its worth in the churning sea, here on Helovia’s brim, and at first knew not to where it was intended. Druid was instantly unsettled at the closeness of the voice, neither hoof fall or breath travelled beside those words and his face moved blindly in the direction from whence it had come to intercept any further sign of company. He did not answer, though his ears danced quickly, backwards and forwards, riding the sudden gush of blood when it bombarded his brain. The stranger’s voice was as soothing as it was genuine, or so the colt felt relying on naught but his instincts to read between the lines. Druid had been alone, wandering for so long now that any normal, or expected response to tenderness from foal as young as he, had been lost already. The colt stomped forward warningly with one front hoof in the same second blowing a harsh grunt, though one as small and raw as he was could never amount to anything more than a wary bluff. It was a very necessary defence mechanism which had already warded away inexpert wolf pups and the like. Fear was not something he had encountered yet; a determined want to survive was all he knew. But the foal wavered uncertainly on the spot, his next move not coming so easily when the stranger spoke again, apparently undeterred.

“N...n... not alone...” He whispered into the darkness, a stutter painfully bruising the sentence. It was not a defect so much as a behavioural twitch. Maybe it was caused by his uneasiness. The colt did not elaborate, he was critically aware of the bustling region surrounding him. Finally the collaboration of his senses found through the deafening throb of his pulse, a muffled step and instantly the child’s vacant gaze found its target. Unconsciously, Druid extended his pointed muzzle and with twitching lips he carefully tasted the air between them. There was indeed a stronger scent lacing the frigidness of the morning, but it was slow to find him while the breeze did not flow.