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fearghas

Fearghas meant well. He had hoped to waylay the handsome brown colt before he could be snatched away by the Lagoon and pressed into service, and yet it seems even this naive hope was to be dashed. He can feel Rade's eyes on him even before the palomino stallion speaks, and Fearghas turns to his old friend with relief glimmering in his dark eyes. He had feared for his life after he'd been taken away. Terrified that Rade would have succumbed to the power of the ocean on the swim to the mainland.

The spotted boy is ready with an agreeable chuckle for Rade's opening line, but his smile fades as Rade digs in, as if Fearghas were the one to be censured for coming here, rather than the young colt they were gathered around. Fearghas stiffened, his ears tipping back as he turned toward his golden friend appraisingly. Which are you? He asks and Fearghas grits his teeth, his gaze turning precipititously toward a glare. Which one was he? The one that had been hunted and chased and backed into a corner repeatedly and without end. The one upon whom his own brothers had turned all for the sake of a single moment of defiance against their leader.

One who had been forced to send his mate and child away for their safety. One who had been robbed of those first few precious months of his first and only daughter's life because he had been too busy worrying that they were going to be attacked every night. The one who had been plagued with Lagoon interference at every turn and every corner until he was quite certain that there was nowhere to hide, and future of lonely solitude laid out before him. Biting the words back, Fearghas's spotted coat twitched in the silence as he stared down his mentor, baffled at what direction he was attempting to take with this. Rade knew what Fearghas had been through. What he had lost. And yet still, he stood here to question him as if Fearghas was the one somehow in the wrong for showing his face here today.

You know Cullen wouldn't appreciate what you're doing here, he says, as though it was somehow still Fearghas' duty to obey the whims and desires of a tyrant that had hunted him to near extinction. Bristling, the Savanna lead abandons all pretense of civility just as the smaller colt beings to back away, an act that was probably for the best all things considered.

"So quick tae forget, are ye, Rade? Gone senile, now have ye?" Lashing the dark strands of his tail, Fearghas lifted his head, accentuating the few inches of height he had on the aged stallion. Disbelief at how far his mentor had fallen - from 'you can do it, stand up to cullen' to 'you shouldn't be here, go hide' - flickered in his gaze and he spat the words out again. "I dinna care what Cullen likes. I have nothin' left fer him tae take save my life, and 'e's welcome to those sorry remains if it'd please him."

Somewhat belatedly, he absorbs what Rade meant to say in his speech, that he was attempting to overthrow Cullen once more and shock settles some of his indignant ire. His gaze darts away with a disgusted tch before he turns back to Rade again. "An' just what d'ye hope tae accomplish? They thought I was too young. Ye'll be too old. And life will just keep on, keepin' on. More boys will come and be ruined in turn. Ye come here to scold me fer rocking the boat, meanwhile yer attemptin' tae tear down the whole dock, ye feckin loony."

One spotted hoof paws at the ground before he continues, his ears still pressed tightly back. "An what is it ye want me to do? Say goodbye? Hope ye make it through? Or is this some sorta messed up way of sayin' goodbye?" His lip curled bitterly, Fearghas glared back at his mentor. "They ain't worth savin. Not anymore." Not after Ally. Not after Seri. Not after Eastwise, and certainly not because suddenly Rade said so. Once, he had believed in their salvation. That somewhere in their hearts was something worth saving, but each time he allowed that hope to grow, it was cruelly cut back by someone new. Again he makes a low, disgusted sound in his throat before casting an irritated glance back a the spotted colt as he made his departure. "Ye stay away from the Lagoon now, y'hear? They'll turn yer heart blacker'n a midnight sky and ruin yer whole feckin' life whilst they're at it."

stallion . 4 years . 16.1 hands . smoky black blanket . loveinspired . credit