Wade’s heart leapt into his mouth when his mother stirred, and when she stumbled onto her feet he lurched forward, neck outstretched to catch her if she fell, but thankfully she did not. Yet she had that look on her face - the one she always had after these episodes - that made her seem like an empty shell, so completely drained of life and energy that she might as well have been a reanimated corpse. Wade hated seeing her like this; it filled him with anxiety over her wellbeing, as though she might shatter into a million pieces at any moment. In spite of this, her weary blue eyes were focused intently on the stallion before her, and Wade’s skin prickled in anticipation of what she would say.
When she finally spoke, he let out a small, resigned exhale. He knew it. She’d had another vision. They often came to her during these episodes, or sometimes in dreams during the night. Wade was used to them; Jetta had explained to him when he was a child that she sometimes saw the future, though her visions were not always accurate. For instance, before he was born she’d dreamt that she would give birth to a splendid white colt. Colt he might have been, but white he was not, at least entirely (though his golden coat had begun to roan in small sections, a suggestion that, one day, he might be).
As a foal, Wade had wholeheartedly believed in these visions, just as Jetta did. Yet as he grew older, watched his mother thrash with her eyes rolling back in her head time and time again, and saw the inconsistent accuracy of her predictions, the more he became disillusioned with them. Once, as a hotheaded adolescent, he had argued with her about it, telling her she was a nutcase if she thought she could see the future. Deep down, Wade still doubted, but he cringed to think back on those moments. Whether or not they were real was not the point; his mother believed in them, and if doing that brought her some comfort in this illness - or whatever it was - then who was he to take that away from her?
Wade’s eyes flicked to the stallion, who was predictably bewildered, but at least he had calmed down now. He asked Jetta to tell him more, using a strange word that Wade did not understand, and Wade glanced to his mother to see her reaction to that. She blinked slowly, as if her brain were working at a quarter of the usual speed, and paused for a few moments before finally telling them what she had seen.
“It’s very faint… slipping from my grasp… But I saw you… You were being chased across the islands... through land and sea, through every climate and landscape... a stallion at your heels, snapping and snarling. He looked very like you. I called after you, to warn you that he was gaining on you… but you… you either did not hear, or could not run any faster. Finally he caught you. There was a terrible scream. Then I awoke.”
Jetta’s gaze had drifted to the ground as she spoke, but now it rose again, to look at the stallion with a somewhat sheepish expression. “I am sorry I cannot tell you more.”
2; mutt; buckskin varnish roan splash; 16.0hh
zevulun x jetta |