Falls

bondurant

She is a blur moving across the landscape, a piece of the sun detached from its rays, streaked and mottled white with her cinnamon mane and tail flowing behind her like a flag. Saltwater still dripped from her body, droplets trailing behind her and catching in the light of the day but she paid it no heed. Her golden ears are buried beneath that tousle of hair as her dark legs churned beneath her body, her crystalline eyes bright with the chase. A sound of pleasure hummed in the back of her throat as her gaze lit on her target, the scent that had been leading her here was strong and true and there had not been a doubt in her mind where she would find him. She always found him in the end though, not matter how hard he tried to lose her or told her she was better off without him. Blood of the covenant may be thicker than the water of the womb, but they shared both and no matter how hard he tried some bonds simply could no be broken.

He stood on the edge of a copse of trees, the sun warming his back as spring finally too hold in the world. The trees which had once only displayed the barest branches showed signs of life once more and the feeling was mirrored in his soul. There was something about being back here, something about those he had met that had begun to rekindle his desire for something more. Not everything he had once cherished so dear, but perhaps something more than the half life he had been living for so long but he wasn’t quite ready to open himself back up to life just yet. Movement draws his eye and his chest tightens in recognition as he both mentally and physically braces for the impact.

She skids to a halt in front of him, her hooves sinking into the soft new grass as her tail lashes out against her spotted side. Her sides heave, her head pulled into her elegantly arched neck as she looks down her nose at him despite him being her superior in height. Her nostrils flared as she simply stared at him, sapphire against emerald as the silence around them grew heavy until she finally broke it. “Where the hell have you been.” Her voice is laced with a mixture of anger and hurt as she bites off the words, though she had a very good idea of exactly where he has been. He looks disheveled, his thick winter coat still clinging to him in patches that did nothing to hide the mud which caked his legs and belly from the slush that winter had let behind. “Did you think you could out run me, that I would just give up and turn tail when it got hard?” Tears threaten but she swallows them instead focusing on her righteous fury which grows with every moment he simply remains silent. “Say something, say it was for the best or that it a’int your fault you son of a-“

“Now stop right there little lady.” His voice finally bellows and she snorts at him roughly, her dark lips drawing back over her blunt teeth as she fights the urge to act like the child she had not been in a long time. “I don’t know who you think you are talkin’ like that.” Despite her best efforts her eyes rolled. “You should know better’n that. You’re the one who raised me aren’t ya? Not proud of all your hard work?” She could have laughed were it not for the burning anger in her chest, though raising her had been his last wish and something he never would have taken on if not for her mothers death, a woman she would never know. But he had taught her to be strong and she had inherited every ounce of pride and strength that ran through his veins. “It a’int my fault every ounce of fire that drove you poured into me and all you been doin’ since is waiting to die.” But not on her watch, no she wouldn’t let him just slip into the night drowning in his blame and self-sacrifice.

He drew breath through his mottled nose slowly, steadying himself and trying to remember just how much she was entitled to her fury. Shame blossomed within him for the first time in a long time, “I am still your father, whatever its worth or not and you’d do well to remember that from time to time.” His head rose so that she could no longer look down on him, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I have a right to my life same as you, to come back to the first place I called home. Last I checked I was your elder not the other way ‘round and I don’t have to tell you everywhere I’m goin’.” The words were clipped and short between his teeth but she was only fanning the embers of what had slowly been rekindled upon his time here and she finally noticed it. For so long he had been lifeless, listless, and how many times had she raised her voice at him over the years and never been given any reaction. Her sunkissed ears untangled from the tresses of her auburn mane for the first time, tilting towards him in curiosity. “I’m glad to see something here has convinced you to not just rollover on life just yet.” Emotion still laces her voice, but it is tempered now by honest intrigue in to what exactly could have so changed him in the short time he had escaped her watchful eye. “Maybe if you’re done dyin’ slowly I’ll get to see you livin’ for a change.” His only response was a shake of his head as realization sank in now that there was on turning back, that with his daughters watchful eye now turned towards him he could only keep moving forward and on with his life whatever it may be now.