Common
Force-claiming is allowed here once a week per character, as is blocking force-claims by the Peak/Lagoon (as a whole) once a week. Rollover is on Sundays.
Posted on October 30, 2020 at 11:51:56 AM by Macaroni
The world rose and fell beneath his hooves; the walls that surrounded him groaned in protest.
Having been loaded into the wooden box-stall aboard the carrack a few days past, the golden pony was by now accustomed to these peculiarities. And though fear and uncertainty lingered in the corners of his thoughts for the absence of all that had been familiar to him - the small pasture he’d shared with old Jack, the treats of apples and carrots delivered to by the warm and inexplicably-moist hands of his human children, the sounds of their voices calling his name joyfully - Macaroni bore his circumstances without complaint. It would do nothing, after all, to fight against the fate his master had chosen for him… even if the young stallion could not comprehend what crime he had committed to be so callously discarded.
To be sure, he had overheard from some who shared in his confinement that they were only travelling to some elsewhere, and would be reunited with their human herds at the journey’s end. But even the typically-buoyant pony could not help to remain skeptical of this claim. For one, he could not imagine that his children would have consented to even a brief separation; young Benjamin in particular was apt to scream and wail when plucked from the short buckskin’s side. And then there was the matter of the incident that had taken place shortly before his departure. Normally mild-mannered and even-tempered, Macaroni had bitten his groom, lifted the latch on his stall door, and led the stableboys, gardener, and even one maid who’d been hanging laundry out to dry on a merry chase across the grounds in a fit of springtime spirits.
Such behavior would have easily been understood amongst his own kind, but seemed to perplex his master, who called upon the farrier. After a brief examination and a muttered conversation - from which he’d only gleaned snippets of strange words such as cryptorchid and castration - the stocky buckskin had been led back to his stall. And there he had remained, denied even the limited freedom of the small paddock, until the day he’d been tethered to the back of the wagon and led to the wharfside district. There - with an ominous clinking of coins - he’d been given over to the care of a stranger, whose interest in his welfare only seemed to extend so far as the most basic of care.
In any case, the young pony had remained calm and complaisant throughout the indinigites he’d suffered, if only because it was not in his nature to be anything but unruffled and obedient. Even when the other creatures in the cargo hold - a few sheep and cows, but for the most part equines of the working variety; destriers and coursers and palfreys - began to shift restlessly in their stalls, Macaroni was unmoved. Amidst the bedlam of their snorts and kicks, he chewed on some of his straw bedding, allowed his thoughts to wander wistfully back home, and dozed.
His return to the present was as abrupt and violent as the convulsions that shook the ship.
For a moment, the sooty buckskin struggled to comprehend the input of his senses. Though a blink of their lids confirmed that his eyes were open, the blackness that greeted them was absolute. The lantern, his mind whispered to the flick of a dark-rimmed ear. Apparently the idiots who had been charged with the animals’ care had forgotten to replenish its fuel, leaving their charges to languish in darkness. But the faint whiff of smoke and a dim flare gave lie to this assumption, and awoke an instinctive fear such as Macaroni had never felt before. In the turbulent pitch of the storm, the light had fallen from its hook on the ceiling - and hungry tendrils of fire were beginning to creep their way amidst the scattered detritus of straw that had not been swept from the passageway.
If not for the part of his mind that was controlled by something beyond rational thought, the pony stallion would have panicked with the rest, and perished. As it was, he did plunge forward, throwing his chest into the solid wood of the stall door a few times without result. It was only the rattle of the latch - barely audible beneath the bedlam that surrounded him - that gave Macaroni a faint hope, and a plan. His short neck arched over the door, straining as lips probed in the gloom for the slim piece of metal with its protruding knob. In this, fortune favored him - he found the bolt in a thrice, and was able to coax it open without too much difficulty.
The door swung outward on its hinges, and Macaroni was free.
Somewhere behind him, a crackling sound caused the hairs along his spine to rise, and the plump little buckskin hastened to escape it. But all around him were also the sounds of the other horses screaming their fear, and he could not deafen himself to the wordless pleas. With neither a conscious decision nor a shred of coordination, the pony paused at intervals during his escape to tug open another latch, setting one of his kind free. A couple others had managed - in the strength of their fear - to liberate themselves. Together in a cluster, they fled down the length of the hold and then up onto the deck of the ship above… only to find themselves clasped in the jaws of a new terror.
There was no understanding the chaos taking place before them - the shouts of the sailors, the snapping of much-abused sails, the bright streaks of lightning and deep growls of thunder. But Macaroni did not need to understand in order to be certain that he wanted nothing to do with any of it. On the heels of a warhorse he gained the ship’s rail and leapt cleanly over it, tumbling through nothingness for the briefest of moments before his body collided with a solid wall of water. Angry and violent, the waves tossed him about like a ragdoll, and Macaroni struggled to regain the surface.
Then instinct took over, and he knew nothing for a very long time.
Warmth. The abrasive texture of sand against his damp coat. And above all, the clamorous cries of gulls. These were the first things to reach him, the first clues to indicate a more auspicious fate than the golden pony had thought to face. Blinking to clear the indefinite haze that had settled over his vision, Macaroni was greeted by the sight of a beach bathed in the pinkening light of dawn - a serene landscape capable of giving every impression that the storm he’d suffered through had never truly existed.
Perhaps the sight should have lulled him, but there was something about his peaceful surroundings that the dappled buckskin did not trust. Filled with this unease, he managed to drag his aching body upright - though the strength to take even the first step was yet beyond him. Instead, he studied the unfamiliar landscape from this new vantage - gazing first one direction and then the other in search of any others who might have survived the devastation. Of the humans, he was quick to note, there were no signs. But there were faint scents and trails through the sand to indicate that some of the other horses might have survived, and it was these individuals his hoarse voice broke the silence to solicit.
Though hardly more than dim acquaintences, any survivors would be an anchor of comfort in the midst of this alien land.
MACARONI
plucky survivor of the shipwreck
plucky survivor of the shipwreck
Replies:
- god give us love in the time that we have - By SAUDADE October 31, 2020 at 07:28:01 PM
- bite me - By CAIN November 18, 2020 at 01:47:01 AM
- to live is an awfully big adventure - By Macaroni November 19, 2020 at 02:36:48 AM
- bite me - By CAIN November 18, 2020 at 01:47:01 AM
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