Meadow

His name had always been something that he was proud of.

To say Vercingetorix was prideful was an understatement- but he was getting better and better at hiding it as he got older.

The red stallion watches quietly as the woman glowers at him, and perhaps he wonders a little if there was a reason behind her bitterness. Perhaps someone had scorned her, and he was the first brightly-coloured thing to step in front of her bull horns. Not much time can be given in speculation, for they answer the boy’s question in sync and she appears to retreat slowly, unhappy to be offering up her name.

The painted bay looks exasperated at the exchange between the two duns, and offers his own name as a small peace offering, attaching to it the name of his homeland.

And Vercingetorix remembers.

The battles of his time here on these islands had been one sided- personal vendettas between one or two people that did not see eye to eye. Nothing like the full-scale war that he had heard about carried on the winds through the meadows. Perhaps it was better that he did not return to the forest so quickly. “The peak?” With a quizzical jerk of his head back to the mare, he almost pokes fun at her. “That’s the kind of place someone like you best belongs.”

It was a haven for the women, and only once had he lost one of his kin to the grips of the Peak. Yet she had wanted to go, and he had let her. “The Peak was not so keen to produce sons, last time I was here.” They had been women striking out on their own, with a hatred for stallions and a strong need to remain barren and childless. Happily, Vercingetorix had kept his distance, and he did not cross those that lingered in the Peak, nor the Lagoon. “I suppose it has been a long time since I have been home…”