Meadow

He is still heaving his breaths as the equally large mare approached. He does not hear much over that huffing sound, nor the shriek in his mind for the salted wounds, so he does not look up as she quickly makes her way over to him.

Instead he thinks of the whip, the bite of leather into his belly and chest, the crack of a switch over his tender ears. He thinks of the jangle of his bonds as he threw himself into the man and crushed him into the outside of stall doors where he was tethered. He thinks of the loud bellow that was cut short with a crunch, followed by wet inhaling. He had not done well, but he had not deserved that.

It is her breath - faint from distance - that he notices and that brings him up out of his stupor. He squeals a horse’s squeal of surprise and thrusts himself to his feet with a shaken head as she nickers and his ears flatten. He does not pin them, means not to fight but only to be wary, but when he sees her, eyes lighting on the creamy face with gentle concerned expression, he thinks better of throwing out a foreleg in false defense.

His skin feels alive with flinches and flickers, open wounds and dangling harness straps and trappings do not help him in his pain. Past flared blinders he dodges his head from side to side to better see her. He cannot breathe well past the strap girdling him so he forces his breathing to slow. She circles in front of him, seeming as keen for a better look as he was. "Need you help?"

One brown eye sees her best and his nostrils flare wide, though he makes no move to connect - no attempt to exchange breaths. The big blazoned white star on his brow peeks through a disheveled forelock, four white socked feet taking steps awkwardly as if he wished to dance - but was pained when doing so. "I do not know where I am, nor if my driver chases me." He says, a crane of his neck attempting to give himself a view of the beach, a heavy puff of air expelled for the lack of two-leggeds chasing him now.

Perhaps he would have thought that he had died, then, if not were for the pain. No master, no cart, no one to cinch the bearing rein, no one to tug at his tender mouth. No one to feed him dry straw, no one to brush off the fly-repelling dust and dirt. No one to gloss his hooves with awful smelling gunk, no one to smoke fore sticks so that the air began to burn in his lungs.

No one to be kind either, but that had been so long ago it was negligible in his thinking. "I do not know you, why help?" Misgiving is clear in his voice, but he has not even yet thought of what it was he needed help with at all. No idea what to do for the pain, for the bleeding, no humans to remove their contraptions and contrivances of power. What help and from whom is a very good question.