♥️
Mother had told her to hide, and Arkana had obeyed, freshly-woken from sleep and too groggy to protest. She could sense the fear radiating off of Mother, and it had rendered her speechless, looking up with wide eyes and nodding once before scurrying off into the underbrush while Mother left in the direction of the beach.
Mother had not said what was wrong, but Arkana is nothing if not perceptive. She has heard the talk of this thing called “war”. She has seen Mother’s reluctance to answer her many questions about it, and Mother would not wake her in the middle of the night if it was not important. Arkana does not understand what war is, or why there are horses who want to hurt them, but she understands the gravity and significance of it. It is hard not to when the first few weeks of her life have been punctuated by whispering and practice drills and crying and the smell of nervous sweat. It had seemed almost normal up until now, but now that it is finally upon them, she understands why the grown-ups have been so worried. Suddenly every shadow is a monster waiting to leap out at her, and she wants nothing more than disobey Mother and run after her so that at least she’s not alone.
It’s as Arkana is squeezing into a little space between some bushes that she remembers Sabran. Sabran! Surely Mother wouldn’t be angry if Arkana went to find her? Then at least they could hide together, and Arkana wouldn’t be alone.
But as she backtracks, calling out in a half-whisper for her sister, Arkana can hear the sound of distant screams, and for a moment she is frozen, listening half with fear and half with fascination. She tries to imagine Mother on the beach, fighting a bunch of strangers in the moonlight, but the idea is so foreign, so strange, that her brain cannot produce a picture of it.
Then she hears a ruckus from another direction, and her tiny ears swivel toward it. Is it Sabran? What if she is in trouble? Arkana feels fear fluttering in her stomach, but the thought of her sister pushes her onward. She creeps through the underbrush as quietly as she can, until she can see several strange stallions through the trees. They look angry, and two are fighting each other. Arkana’s breath freezes in her throat and she quivers in the shadow of a tree, watching the battle unfold. She has seen plenty of practice fights, but never anything real like this. It’s brutal, but strangely fascinating.
As she watches the fight, she cannot help but wonder, not for the first time, what this whole war thing is about. It makes no sense to her. Mother has always told her to “play nice”, so why can’t grown-ups do the same? Why do they have to hurt each other?
love-child of evren and shamwari
newborn; mutt; bay tobiano |