Force-claiming is not allowed here. This is a peaceful, neutral area meant for socialising.
| KENDRY | |
| Kendry notes how perfectly poised Bozena is to strike and gladder now more than ever that he has not taken more than one step to follow her. The damage he might have wrought further would likely have been irreparable, and as it is he wonders if he will have the chance to even redeem himself as things stand now. He holds his breath, his eyes searching her dark gaze as she lowers her bold head and considers his request. And then— I make my home at the Peak.
He bows his head in somber farewell as Bozena leaves him and holds that pose for a long time, thinking, his blue eyes unseeing. The Peak is another part of the puzzle he has been considering for the last few days. He knows little of it beyond that the populace is almost exclusively female, and that there is no love lost between those mares and the stallions living at the Lagoon. He can’t recall ever hearing anything good about the Peak, but his only source of information has been that of other bachelors, a perspective he is rapidly coming to realize must be flawed. Because while it can be argued that the bachelors behave the way they do because of the disdain lavished upon them, it is a weak argument from a weak people. There is a reason for the Islands’ collective revulsion of the Lagoon, and there is a reason that same disgust and abhorrence is not shared by the inhabitants of the Peak. He hates to think of it in such bald terms, for it neglects the understanding that all horses are complex individuals and the few cannot always be represented by the whole, but it is rather like the idea of Good and Evil. Evil is not Evil because Good condemns it. Good condemns Evil because of its nature. It returns him to the idea of fate. Kendry exhales a pent-up breath in one explosive sigh. Guilt, and a little self-loathing, rear their heads in his heart. They are not familiar emotions to him, and he doesn’t like feeling them now, but the more he considers what he knows the bigger they get. If Bozena calls the Peak home and lives her life in such a way that she acts as champion for all, what then can be said of the perlino stallion who harassed a mare right here in this very Meadow a handful of years ago, shoulder to shoulder with another bachelor, saying words he told himself were flirtatious just because it was fun to watch someone else squirm? Can one really sleep in Evil’s den and come away unmaligned? He snorts again and shakes his body loose of his tense introspection, looking after Bozena. She is long gone, her dark form swallowed by the shadows cast in the moonlight, the tread of her hooves drowned out by the chorus of crickets who followed him here. Will she judge him for the things he did as a selfish, unthinking boy, or will she recognize Kendry for who he is today, and who he can be in the future? A terrible energy wells within him and the pale stallion pivots before lunging into a run, carrying himself away from the decisions in his past and toward the only thing he can think of that might bring him salvation. Kendry seeks a new dawn for himself, drawing the heavy mantle of responsibility across his shoulders as he chases his own demons through the darkness and finally stops when his feet hit the beach. | |
stallion . draft mutt . eight . perlino . 18hh . son of marlena | |