Meadow

Hawke

x^aisy/ six / grullo tobiano / mixed breed / 15.3hh

They must have been a sight to behold - the two wretched, ragged creatures who haunted a solitary corner of the meadow. The stallion’s coat was salt-crusted and unkempt - and though larger than the companion he kept, his figure curled in on itself in a defeated manner, so that they might have been of similar size. Hawke on the other hand was well-groomed but thin - little more than a scarred grey-brown coat stretched over wiry muscles and bone. When paired with the sunken eye, it cut a rough figure - the kind of creature that would be expected to deal in violence instead of compassion. If asked to guess which was the king and which the vagrant, few would have chosen correctly - but life was often full of such small ironies. Even the mighty could be brought low by a well-placed blow.

In any case, rank and title meant little to Hawke, who had spent almost the entirety of hir life apart from the organized chaos that was herd life. To hir, the worth of another was not measured in how well they fought, but in what they chose to fight for. Just as shi understood that it was possible for even of the kindest of creatures to be cruel, as it was in the cruelest of creatures to be kind. “No one who feels remorse or grief is beyond redemption,” the androgynous equine spoke, hir voice strengthened by the weight of conviction that it bore. If this stranger truly believed that his fate was a well-deserved punishment for some past crime, then undoubtedly he was already forgiven by whatever entity he believed in.

“How do we defeat ourselves?” Hawke would have shrugged if shi were human; as a horse shi must settle for shaking hir head ruefully, the corners of hir dark lips pulling downward. “I’m afraid that we already have. Look at me - a lonely creature whose exile is almost entirely self-imposed. And you - it is clear that you feel some grief, yet instead of seeking out the comfort of the ones you love, you fled here. Why?” The grullo paused without expecting an answer, and continued on regardless of whether one was offered. “Because we have brought our suffering upon ourselves. When I asked him why my mother left, my father once told me that you must first love yourself before you can accept the love of another. And so here we are.”

Hawke fell silent for a long moment afterwards, staring reflectively in the direction of the Peak. Perhaps in another world, shi might have belonged there. A world in which shi was more comfortable with who - and what - shi was. It wasn’t hir peculiarities that had made the grullo an outcast - it was hir nature. Shi had never fit in anywhere because shi had never tried to; fear of rejection had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if what Hollowpoint had said was true, the power to change hir wretched existence rested entirely with hir. If shi sought those things that shi desired - a place to belong, the companionship of hir own kind, the freedom to both give and receive the love that had been absent for most of hir life - could they truly be hirs?

There was only one way to know.

But ever the self-sacrificing creature, Hawke was determined to give of hirself until shi could make this stranger whole again. Shi would gladly allow the empty husk of hir own heart to be tossed aside, if it spared another the pain that shi had known - a pain made all the worse now that shi understood it was of hir own doing. “None who hold on to the past will ever escape it. Forgive yourself. Move on. All make mistakes, but not everyone has the wisdom to make something more of them.” Don’t be like me, shi ached to add, instead tucking hir head tightly against hir neck and staring down at the soft, emerald down of grass that had emerged from the thaw-dampened soil.

I loved and lost, and closed my heart. I learned too late that it is better to be riddled with holes than it is to be empty.

*hir and shi are gender-neutral pronouns