I am the razor in the hands of your heart;
And I am the razor in the hands of God.
Evaline had grown used to being alone with just her thoughts. So much so that she didn't even think it was strange anymore when she murmured aloud, whispering her own thoughts to no one else but her. She'd have full fledged conversations with herself in an effort just to pass the time (and to keep herself from going completely mad). Most of the time she'd talk about her children. She'd retell stories of Shamwari's and Vita Nova's adolescence. She's talk about what Valentine was like as a father to them both. She'd speak in great detail about Paradiso's spotted coat, remembering every white and dark patch and where it corresponded on his body. She'd even talk about Avangeline and Gabbar too, just so she wouldn't forget them. She was so afraid of forgetting the life she'd had before all this.
In her low moments, the golden mare would blame herself for had happened. The guilt of how she raised Kasabian would overwhelm her. She was so young and so scared. She had been traumatized by how he came to be. It had been so hard for her to look at his sickly little body when he was born and find something to love. Evaline would also hone in on how selfish she was under Gabbar's care. She had completely dismissed his kindness and the rest of the herd to wallow in her own self pity. How foolish she had been. She had others who cared for her there. And she threw that all away.
Evaline was round, but only in her abdomen. Her pregnant belly hung low between her legs, but whatever muscle tone and healthy coat she had before she got to the Lagoon had completely faded away. Pink and grey scars marred her coat when Psychedelic, and more frequently, Kasabian, had attacked her. Whatever pulsing pain that once reverberated in her torn ear had faded. But the lingering infection had deformed the lobe. It no longer stood at a pointed edge, instead it fell forward and crumbled at half the height. Her hearing too, was muffled there. The's mare's chest and hips concaved where muscle used to be. Her coat was bland and filthy, her legs covered and tangled in dry mud. The once long, thick and wavy strands of her mane and tail were thin and patchy now, having been torn out by equine teeth and the thorny branches she often brashly rushed by when fleeing one of her kidnappers.
When Evaline heard her son's call, her good ear swiveled forward and back to register the sound. Immediately her brown eye grew wide and wild and her petite head darted around the top of her neck as she surveyed the empty landscape around her. She knew there would be repercussions if she didn't bend to his call. Kasabian had too many eyes in this Lagoon. Certainly one of them would find her, as they had in the past, and deliver her to her son. She was too tired to flee this time, so the mare, took small and limping steps through the cold mud to head obediently in the direction of his call.
The mare heaved a heavy sigh before emerging from the vegetation into an open clearing. She didn't immediately lift her gaze from the Lagoon floor. But when she did, she was flabbergasted to see Gabbar and Valve standing at the shoreline. She was so startled that the mare began to cry.
17 | Arabian cross |14.2 | Palomino | Mother of Kasabian, Shamwari, Vita Nova, Paradiso | Vinyl |