Common

It was thirst that drove him inland. A dry, flaking thirst, courtesy of the sea-water he’d swallowed, that refused to be ignored. The sound of running water drew him to a river. In the distance, the unmistakeable hiss of cascading falls. The water smelled odd, tasted bitter in his parched mouth. But thirst and resignation drove him to drink anyway. Hours later, he woke in pain, and paid the price for missing the taint in the stream. But he did not suffer alone. A young mare was with him, so similar in colouring and delicate build to him that it was like looking at a younger version of himself.

They spoke throughout the night, a murmured conversation, and the young mare’s soft crooning was a comfort to Jaine, her presence a balm to his shattered heart. It was a wound that could not heal, weeping nightly in the deep loneliness the golden gypsy stallion always felt just before the dawning of each new day. And again, without fail it washed over him like the incoming tide. Deeply intense emotional pain. The hollowness of it was nigh unbearable, and the stallion groaned in torment, wishing instead for the physical pain that had twisted his stomach into knots to return. Anything, anything would be better than this.

Promise me you won’t go back into the sea alone. Promise me! The phantom words of the mare gave Jaine some purchase, and he scrabbled, holding onto the memory of her voice as if for his very life. "I promise," he had murmured weakly in the strangely peaceful fever dream. The force of her words had made him shrink in on himself and he had turned from her in shame. It tore him up to think that a stranger would be able to read him so easily, filled him with horror. It was weakness, crippling weakness that had driven him into the water without the intent of ever leaving it. This was not who he wanted to be.

If his mate and daughter could see him now, their disappointment would surely run deep to their bones.

The sobbing of the stallion ceased, as did the moans of despair. A stillness settled over him, and he didn’t move, for several long moments he did not even breathe. And suddenly, his eyes opened wide, and he drew in a great, shuddering lungful of air. Great effort was expended to raise himself to his feet, and the trembling of his legs, the weakness in his knees did not help matters. His daughter. His daughter. There was a clarity in his sad eyes as he surveyed the small copse of trees among which he’d bedded down that indicated the sharp contrast between his physical condition and his mental acuity. It was a curse, in a way, his astuteness. But he managed to live with it.

There was no sweet feminine perfume in the air, nor any depressions in the soil save those made by his own hooves, hidden as they were by bedraggled, muddied feathering. The mare – the mare his daughter had been robbed of the chance to become – had not been real in the physical sense. But she was real enough to Jaine. This time, it was not physical thirst that led him to the stream. Instead, rather recklessly, he sought to drink again. A warped desire certainly – but one born of desperation and longing. He gulped down water until his stomach hurt, and meandered on. Even as he went, he recalled that this was not the same river. There was no sound of the waterfalls, and the terrain was different. No foul odour, nor astringent tang. Even so, foolishly he hoped.

Hours later, Jaine stood alone just beyond the lush grasses of the meadows, chin tucked to his chest as though it would offer some respite from the howling winds that had rolled in with the storm that hovered on the distant horizon. It did not. Exhaustion deepened the lines on his face that had been carved there years ago by an anguish that he feared he’d never shake free of. Whether he was deserving of the promise of serenity, who could say. Then again, even if it were offered to him freely, Jaine wouldn’t feel worthy of accepting it. The guilt he felt for giving himself over to the sea served as yet another weight upon his narrow shoulders, hunched as they were against the buffeting gale.

Still, he’d promised her that he wouldn’t go into the sea alone again, at least not when he was in so dark a mindset. So, Jaine was fated to linger in this thoroughfare, until the sun shone on him truly once more, or some passing soul took pity on the waif-like stallion and was game enough to try pull him from wallowing in the wellspring of his misery.