thoth
we spend all our time running for our lives, going nowhere

Thoth had never had the best relationship with horses. It was hardly his fault that his unicorn threw him into Mace’s tent in the middle of the night.

His half of the pair of mythical foals he and Tristan had rescued some months previous had turned out to be a handful even for him. Once the orphaned filly had gotten over her traumatising displacement, she revealed a temperament which would try even the most placid and patient of people. Tenacious, wilful and essentially nocturnal, she reacted strongly to conflict and ignored virtually all instructions. Thoth would have accepted caring for what was clearly an untameable spirit were it not for the fact that she was wreaking every possible havoc on the camp.

Like tonight, for example. She’d managed to sneak past Toby (Thoth’s African Wild Dog friend, who was zonked out after an evening of enthusiastic squirrel chasing) and Morveren (his familiar, and the most useless guard-animal ever) and had trotted off deeper into camp. Thoth had woken up in the night to find her missing and had subsequently located her goring the food supplies with her horn, apparently for no other reason than sheer vindictive pleasure.

“Eris!” He hissed, slipping into the unicorn’s language as quickly and easily as it took for ire to take hold. “Cut that out.”

Eris lifted her head a fraction, sizing him up with a single, pale blue eye. Drops of blood from the carcass she’d been poking slid down her golden horn towards her silvery forelock, making Thoth’s stomach clench and his mouth twist into a grimace. Fantasy writers who extolled the purity of unicorns had clearly never met Eris. She flicked her tail, considering. Then she lowered her head, skewered the deceased trout that the fishing party had brought back earlier and, with a jerking of the neck, flipped it right at Thoth. He skirted to the side, swearing under his breath. The trout flopped to his feet with a nasty wet slapping sound, gazing up at him with a dead, unseeing eye. Taking full advantage of the distraction, Eris pranced off into the night.

Doing his best to ignore the overpowering smell of death, Thoth followed doggedly after her, folding his arms across his chest to ward off the cold. He didn’t have to go far. Eris had paused outside a tent to inspect the waterproof fabric, nostrils flared and ears pricked forward with interest. Experience had taught Thoth not to bother approaching cautiously and slowly from the side as he would with any other flighty horse. Shoulders hunched, eyebrows knitted together, he marched right up to her. Eris skittered a little away from the tent and turned her head to watch him approach, a mischievous gleam. Thoth never even got a chance to reprimand her for her misdemeanours. She waited until he was not only close, but also in the act of taking a step. Intelligently exploiting the moment when his balance was weak, she swung the front of her body round and shoved him fully into the entranceway of the tent, knocking him off his feet. Thoth landed with a flump squarely inside, right on top of the occupant.

“Ugh.” He rolled sideways and sat up, rubbing his back. “Sorry, Mace.”

He cast an evil side-eye at the entrance to the tent. Eris’ pretty, young face was poking inside, the picture of purity and innocence.