Gabbar
stallion . arabian . bay . 14.3hh . 8
It takes darkness to get him off the beach. Go home, Shamwari had said. As if he could. Gabbar snorts lightly and forces the rising disgust for himself aside as he moves through the night. It’s darker beneath the trees. The heat he found so oppressive earlier has receded abruptly, leaving the air chill and light. It reminds him of night on the sands. Gabbar closes his eyes against pain and moves blindly for several steps.
When he opens them again —it would only further prove his incompetence if he were to run into a tree or stumble over a root, and without the moon it’s almost like walking with his eyes closed anyway— he sees a silhouette up ahead, unevenly pale and dark. Then a voice, unafraid, followed by the turning of a head and two of the brightest, bluest eyes he’s ever encountered.
Gabbar stops. It occurs to him he could turn and leave, right now, and continue his self-reflective and deprecating solitude. But this is not why he’s returned to the islands. He scents the air and doesn’t recognize the horse in front of him, discovers only that she is female. Bolstered by anonymity under the cover of a darkness that is truly obscuring, he dares to speak to her.
“Hello,” he greets her in return, his deep voice kept low so as not to disturb the night. There is an intimacy here: two strangers meeting under the forgiving cover of darkness. For Gabbar, there is also an element of taboo. He speaks to a mare as if they are on equal standing, a mare of indeterminate breeding. Her bloodlines could contain anything. Anything other than a purebred Arabian is automatically lesser according to his culture, and no good will come to those who associate with the inferiors. Just as no good will come to a stallion who dares rise above his station and converse so familiarly with a mare.
Uzay'ın derinliklerine hepinizle, he curses the Arabians who shaped him. Were it not for them, perhaps he could have protected Evaline. Perhaps he could have partnered Valve in all ways, truly been equal to the formidable Akhal-Teke mare— gods, think of all they could accomplish together rather than competing for petty superiority based on something entirely superficial. What of all the horses he’s met here who are not Arabians? Avangeline was always sweet, and capable despite the trait many of his kind deemed a weakness. Evaline displayed a strength far deeper than the physical prowess so revered by his mother and her followers. Valve herself, while a powerhouse of intelligence and Akhal-Teke cunning personified, was still rational and deeply protective of the horses living on her sands— no matter what their bloodlines were.
There has been a rather long pause.
Gabbar snaps back to awareness and fights the impulse to stay silent and wait for the mare to direct the conversation where she wishes it to go, if indeed she wishes to converse at all. He takes another significant mental step away from his mother’s culture and claims equal footing with the mare in the dark all in one sharp intake of breath— and because he’s not very practiced at this at all, says the first thing that comes to mind: “It’s very dark out here.”
As if it would be lighter anywhere else, salak, he scolds himself, but it’s too late to take the redundant statement back. |