Alacran, Arcus learned, was very young in the mind. Physically she looked like a young mare, emotionally she was as constipated as an old man, and mentally ...well,

--he was still pondering what to say about it. So far, he only knew one thing about Alacran--two! Actually, if you included her name.

"Don't ever take my leather away from me or I'll kill you."

He shivered thinking about it, his skin flickering in the dull light of the evening. The moon was full and bathing the ridge in a gloomy blue light, Alacran was just ahead of him sleeping in her nook by the gathering of a few trees. The clouds shifted and parted, his eyes wandered when the breaks of moonlight came down from the sky, studying the landscape and focusing on being alert. Three years since his last patrol where Hayze left him in charge of the herd overnight while the Elders left, he managed to do it then and so he would do it now -- his main concern making sure that the cooky mare that had followed him home would not some how manage to roll down the cliffside.

Don't be so absurd. She's a living creature. Bit his conscience as he considered how much quieter it would be without the mare child tittering endlessly. Arcus had already informed her once that she talked about everything and nothing at the same time but it did not seem to shake the young buckskin -- she was keen on driving him mad. Initially seeking a place to stay had not been a part of his plan...but so did the plan of not ever bringing chicks home to the bachelor pad (wherever it may have been at the time Arcus met Alacran). Her name was fitting enough, he felt, that in whatever language translated her name into 'Scorpion' seemed almost like a colony of fortune tellers -- for that is exactly what Alacran had come to be. Though her poison was not one that killed her prey -- it just lowered their tolerance and chewed at every nerve with every petulent complaint she made to him.

Why wasn't the grass greener?

'Summer just passed.'

Why wasn't the sun out all day?

'The world turns and we turn with it, it cannot be helped.'

Why weren't there any trees in the Ridge?

'This is a lie, there are three by the cliffside -- maybe you should go take a look?'

Why can't we stop for water?

'It isn't clean enough here.'

Are we there yet?

'We have been here for three hours already -- it's a large piece of land and you have been following me in endless circles.'

Something had to give -- anything. He would take nightterrors over this if he could -- he'd even stick his face into a boiling hotspring just to drown her quibbling out. Arcus had grown impatient with almost everyone surrounding him already -- and had simply walked away from everyone except for Bleu and Evanthe, who were still out there in that world he had created for himself. Quietly he wondered about them in the darkness that a passing cloud casted him in, he was almost invisible to even the trained eye until that sliver of light cut a gaunt contour of his body. Arcus had lost more weight and looked like a ghoul with his ghastly thin form than a horse.

"Arcus! I just had the strangest dre--"

"GO TO SLEEP."

Silence.

A R C U S