Meadow

-lift up your head-

Fighting back the shiver running down his spine, Zharko clenched his teeth and stood defiantly against the stallion. Just because what he said was true, did not mean the colt needed to accept the fact. Life had almost been ripped away from him when he first stepped hoof into the sea and still with every kick he had fought it. Today he stood, still alive and daring death to try to take him again. Ears flicked back against his head and against the wind and the gale.

The stallion commands him again. For a second the boy thought about continuing his defiance. This was not the warm bodied and good natured stallion that had taken him in when he first came to the island. Even Cinnamon’s pelt had given off the illusion of warmth and comfort. Where he was a soft ember in a hearth, this dark faced summoner was cold. But he had a point. If they remained in the storm much longer, the colt was very possibly not wake to see the spring. Grudgingly, Zharko’s shadowed body followed the stallion and quietly snorted in the shelter of the proposed trees. Bare of leaves and snapping against each other, there was still very little shelter to be had. But the occasional coniferous pine and the thickness of the forest did enough to allow the colt to lower his shoulders from the hunch he had been frozen to in the gale.

He looked up at the stallion, eyes narrowed in distrust. The beast was clearly battle scarred and rough. Mark marred the white flesh and a single white eye seemed to look along with a single blue. Zharko snorted, more to himself than anything. If you are not Death, who are you? he asked more bluntly than a youth should have to a weathered adult. During a storm was not the time to be polite, and the boy had already made it clear he was not going to do much without a fight.