Falls

Spring.

On the first day, the matted remains of his winter coat had been violently yanked from his shoulders and his haunches. Teeth setting into his own skin and scraping and rubbing and tugging until his skin was sore and raw. Beauty took time, and he hunkered down alongside the falls to undergo the yearly scrubbing of his skin.

Shoulder deep in the water, there is a patch of sun that breaks through the treetops, heating the water and warming him.

Like a great spa, the roar of the falls welcome him and tempt him further into the water.

He soaks for minutes, hours, maybe even days. He isn’t sure how long he’s been lounging in the waters, dipping his head down occasionally, rinsing the sins of winter from his hair and coming away clean. Cleanliness was next to godliness, and Valens’ mother said that he beheld the beauty of a god.

Finally, he rises up from the water.

As the water drips from his skin, making a mix of blue-black and white, he is cleansed of his winter coat. There are no rough patches, and his skin aches from the vigorous scrubbing and cleaning. Standing at the edge of the pool, the mist from the falls rising up behind him and sprinkling his raw skin with a cooling veil of water, he twists his great elegant neck and puts his lips to his shoulder, rubbing his lips tenderly against a sore patch of skin.

To anyone watching, there was nothing wrong. He is clean, and he is a vision of beauty, awash with white and blue and black, with speckles handsomely adorning his skin and with blue eyes that are vibrantly watching the trees that surround him. There is something ethereal and other-worldly about him. Thin hips and delicate shoulders, long legs and thin neck- he looks rather womanly.

He would not fault a stranger for thinking that he was a mare- thanks to the cleanliness of his skin and the scent of his manhood being washed away by the cool spring waters that lay at the bottom of the falls.