From the day she had met Vodnik, Dracaena had been planning. She had watched him from afar, familiarizing herself with his habits and rituals, getting an idea of what he liked and disliked, what made him tick, and what captured his interest. But he may as well have been made of stone, for all the information he gave her. It did not help that but for the two of them, the Ridge appeared to be more or less empty and she could not see how he normally interacted with other horses.
The day the red mare appeared, Dracaena finally knew what her plan was.
At first it had disgusted her, to see how enamored the stallion was with this meek creature. Dracaena had watched from the shadows as he brought her back to the ridge, fresh from a fight, with the little red mare all but cringing in his vicinity. Even without knowing what the competition had been like, Dracaena was not surprised that Vodnik had won her; he looked as if he could crush a horse's skull beneath a single hoof, after all. But what she did not understand was why. Why had he taken the trouble to steal someone so plain and uninteresting? The conclusion she eventually came to, as she stood marvelling at the stark difference in size between them, was that this mare, small and timid and submissive as she was, made Vodnik feel powerful.
It was a disappointing realization, in a way. It made Vodnik a little more boring in her eyes. Plus, Dracaena had no ounce of subservience in her, and she had no desire to inflate a stallion's ego by batting her eyelashes and being a good little mare. No, she knew what she needed to do, but it would not be that.
It was a cool summer evening that she ventured to the ridge's border. The sunlight slanted sideways through the trees, casting long golden stripes across the rocky ground as Dracaena manouvered downhill. With the light at her back, she could see easily before her, and as she left the stench of Vodnik's musk behind she almost immediately caught sight of a pale figure moving restlessly through the trees. She froze and lifted her head, regarding the figure with a stiff curiosity. It was a stallion, small and flashy compared to Vodnik, but handsome in his own way. And he was young, too: perhaps her age, or even younger. It was not difficult to venture a guess as to who he was.
She tossed her thick, tangled forelock out of her face and approached the stallion with a wry smile. "Etwas ver--" she began, remembering too late that these islanders did not understand anything but their own garbage language. The stout dark mare paused before correcting herself. "Missing something you lost?"
DRACAENA
four; flaxen liver chestnut sabino; 15.1hh |