It had been thecourage that Róisín had planted in her heart with her kindness that had carried the scarred brown mare down the slopes valleys of the Peak, and she had lingered upon the borders of the Lagoon until well after nightfall. Then, stealthy and silent, heart beating in her throat the whole time, she crept into the Bachelor’s domain. Not come to do harm, as she had last time. But to try and make amends.
But it was too little, and far too late.
In no uncertain terms, Azizi told her to get out, and never come back. And he claimed his figurative pound of flesh. Not so much an eye for an eye as blood for an ear. Shenzi had dug in her heels, and her son, now grown and independent and living a life separate from her, had pushed back. The Lagoon was his home, and the Bachelors were his family.
It was a superficial wound, really, the tender skin of her nose scraped raw by the teeth of an angry stallion. The bleeding was minimal, but the coppery scent lingered in her nostrils, and every wrinkle of her muzzle, every deep breath she drew had her twitching her lip in discomfort. Shenzi stood among two pines at the edge of the meadow, staring up at the sky as it slowly lightened with the dawn. How strange, she thought, that the world could seem so tranquil, when thunder and turmoil threatened to tear her apart from the inside.
In truth, it was why she couldn’t commit to staying in the Peak. When she fell to pieces, as she knew she eventually would, she wanted to be far, far away from the ones who’d taken her in. Far, far away from the General. Róisín and her family had suffered enough, and Shenzi didn’t want to continue that cycle. Briefly, she considered never going back, but the idea was quickly dismissed. The women of the Peak deserved better than her vanishing in the dead of night at winter’s end.
The scarred barb mare wasn’t expecting to be greeted by another this early, but as a soft nicker carried through the still air, Shenzi turned and squinted through the mist that blanketed the meadow. A dark figure emerged, and for several moments after the stallion drew close enough for her to see, Shenzi narrowed her bright eyes in contemplation. "I know you," she murmured at length, and it took her a few moments more to uncover the memory.
It rose to her tongue, and carried with it traces of bittersweet melancholy. A time when, years ago, the physical pain of her injuries had been so much greater. But her heart had been mostly whole, then. Hopeful. And as she looked upon the sooty, lean stallion, in him she saw the boy he had been, and she wondered if he knew the darkness that had fallen across the sands of Salem, not so long after they’d met.
"You... You went to find an aloe flower for me."
|