I would honestly love you now,
But I would lovingly let you down.
When he woke up in Paradise, he almost couldn't believe it. I must still be dreaming, he thought. But he wasn't.
His weary body ached as he forced himself to stand. Slowly, over the next couple of hours, the details of what had transpired, of what had led him here, began to become more clear in his mind. Celestria.
Jabari left the Lagoon in far worse shape than when he went in, but that wasn't necessarily the bachelor stalllions' fault. There was enough forage for the herd in the Lagoon, even if the taste was quite bland compared to what the painted stallion was used to on Luthien. Jabari wasted away during his captivity because of his own anxious and depressed mind. His worried nature kept him standing for hours of the time as his muscle tone began to waste away. He didn't drink and he didn't eat. Nor did he ever sleep, ridding him of the usual shine in his coat and causing stark indentations at his hips, along his spine and loss of topline, where he was one round. He hardly looked like himself.
The toll this period had taken on his body was great. Too great even for him to fight off a pregnant mare. To give himself some credit, Celestria wasn't just some pregnant mare. She was a force to reckon with. The devil's spawn... The insults continued in his head...
The painted son of Shamwari was ashamed, embarrassed and furious. He'd left the Lagoon a free man, after serving his two-season term. And not a day later, he was yet again someone else's slave, and now being forced to dwell in the confines of his father's enemy's territory. It was unreal.
He knew he had to get out of here, and quick. But the only way to do that was to get stronger. Luckily, the vegetation on Atlantis was much more plentiful. So he kept to himself deep in the jungle, and ate, and walked and ate and walked... Building up his girth and stamina as quickly as he could.
Stallion | Brienne x Shamwari | Chesnut Overo | 15.2 h| Photo © Carina Mailwald | © Vinyl |
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