Falls

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Home.

Four letters, one syllable. Is it a place, a feeling, a memory?

And now, in the fall of his life, the golden stallion returns. The hands of time are eminent on his proud shoulders. The sheen of his coat not quite as golden as it once was. His hide is marred by old scars and new ones - badges of honor - and speckled with silver hair - punishments of time.

His eyes are different too. Bronze eyes that once held the world with reckless abandon, that once held so much ambition, that once held so much pain, have now dulled and settled as though through life had softened everything that had once made him passionate.

He has loved, he has lost, he has finally put to sleep those nightmares that haunted him in his youth. Somewhere in his travels he found himself and became comfortable with that existence. His topline sways slightly now, but his legs are still strong, his brow is still proud. There’s still a regal air about him, as if his bones remember he was once a king.

A Midas leaves the beach behind him and trots into the clearing beyond, he feels the light crunch of spring snow crumple under his hooves. Velvet ears swivel as he hears that familiar yawn of The Falls in the distance as they wake from their winter freeze. He knows soon the falls will roar as spring erupts into summer.

Midas inhales. He lets the salt air tingle the baby whiskers that speckle his greying muzzle. He closes his eyes and the briefest of smiles dances across his lips. His bronze eyes glance around the clearing and then back at the channel from where he had just come. The ocean roars out in front of him. Cerulean water caresses the beach. He knows the way to Atlantis, it calls to him as it always has, but for once he doesn’t care to answer.

Turning his broad shoulders from the sea, Midas moves purposefully forward but interestingly enough, without a purpose. No goal plays in his mind except that he is here to stay. There would would be no more disappearing, there would be no more second chances.

He was back on the islands, and though he doesn’t know how many more years he’ll have in this life, he intends to take his last breath just as he had taken his first breath, on these islands.

He is home.

Tarrant x Vintage // Stallion // Palomino [ee aa nCr] // Thoroughbred x Mustang x Mixed // 15.2hh // 12 // No children // a fable character //