Common

Iscariot! Iscariot!

The pale stallion could hear the desperation in Rivaini’s voice, and it frightened him more than the current whose iron grip he had narrowly escaped. Sucking in a great mouthful of air, he prepared to call out a response to his sister, so she would know that he was safe. But the seawater he’d swallowed earlier left his throat as raw and gritty as if he’d swallowed sand, and the sound of the silver’s bay name left his lips as a wheezing gasp that she’d never be able to hear over the pounding of the surf. Flicking his own ears forward, the perlino stallion strained to hear the sound of Rivaini’s voice again, but they were met with nothing but the raucous cries of gulls and the sighing of the waves. And though seconds ago Iscariot thought that nothing could be more terrifying than the sound of his sibling’s fear, he realized now how wrong he had been.

The silence was so much worse.

Panic lent strength to creamy limbs that had been filled with lead, and before he could rationalize what he was doing, Iscariot had re-entered the rip current. It was worse this time; since his body was perpendicular to the forces of the water instead of parallel, the first wave managed to overwhelm him over as easily as a sapling in a gale-force storm. Beneath the surface, the current was even more violent as it contended with the downward slope of the ocean floor - Iscariot was battered and spun around until he couldn’t be certain which direction to swim. The stale air was beginning to burn his lungs when his blue eyes finally glimpsed the glimmer of the sun far above him, and with a surge of frenetic strength he strove upward, feeling as if the darkness of the depths followed him as oxygen deprivation blackened the edges of his vision.

The first breath of air was sweeter than any grass he’d ever tasted.

Iscariot had been carried far beyond the forces of the current, but he was still in grave danger. The perlino stallion was exhausted, and a pain greater than any he’d felt before crackled through his hind limbs. It was obvious he could not swim for much longer, and Iscariot had all but resigned himself to the fact that he was about to drown when the sea delivered an unexpected miracle - the weathered corpse of a palm tree.

Hooking his forelegs over the trunk, Iscariot’s pale form slumped over it, and he knew nothing for a long time.

**********

When the sea finally released him and the veil of darkness lifted from his eyes, it was as if he'd been reborn.

Iscariot washed up on the island's shore in a gush of saltwater - a pale, crumpled figure as weak and helpless as the day he'd first entered this world. Unable to bear the weight of his own body, the stallion's hind legs folded beneath him, throbbing in rhythmic agony. And though the air burned like fire in his salt-scorched throat, the perlino matched each breath to the familiar symphony of his suffering. Pain, cresting like the waves that washed over his back. Inhale. And then receding, pulling back to its source to grant him a blissful second of respite. Exhale. The swells came slower as the sky lightened overhead, losing strength, and Iscariot rolled over onto one side, watching the stars fade from existence.

"Rivaini." The name found his lips as the brightest and boldest of them vanished, leaving only the grey void of its absence. The white-gold Andalusian barely saw the shadowy web of clouds that stretched across the sky, barely felt the cold flakes that kissed his skin; the memory of his sister filled his senses. You see that bright star, little brother? She had once asked, standing beside him under a different sky. When you are stronger, we'll follow it together, and to hell with everyone else. But he had always been weak. It was Rivaini who was the strong one, so strong that there was no way she hadn't survived. Iscariot knew that his sibling was still out there somewhere, knew it with every fibre of his being.

And in that certainty, he found a strength he hadn't known was in him.

Iscariot drew heavily from it now as he dragged his body upright, battling against the weakness that had left his limbs wooden and unresponsive. Trembling, the perlino took one stumbling step, then another, and another. Through sheer force of will, the young stallion stayed on his feet, staggering through the grey dawn in the only direction he could see - away from the shadow of the sea, and toward the half-lidded eye of the rising sun, and a meadow around which tall trees stood like sentinels.