Gabbar
stallion . arabian . bay . 14.3hh . 8
Gabbar expects hooves thudding against his knees and cannon bones, or some other crippling strike. Maybe the hot pinch of teeth bruising his skin, the slick agony of flesh pulled apart by force. He deserves it. More, he decides, when he thinks of Evaline’s mangled ear and grotesquely swollen barrel.
The waves wash around his hooves. He hears Shamwari’s snort and tenses involuntarily, but the splashing of the other’s hooves brings no pain or impact. Only the chestnut stallion’s voice, falling like pebbles clattering about underfoot into Gabbar’s lax ears. He opens his eyes and turns toward Shamwari, who is not poised to assault him but instead to leave.
Gabbar sloshes out of the waves to cut him off. “Wait,” he says, and where there had not been a note of desperation before, it now rings in his deep voice. “Please,” he continues, though it cuts through whatever dignity he does carry to admit he does not know— “What happened that day?” The names are dragged from him. “Evaline.. Did Valve...?”
It is so terrible, not to know. |