“C’mon, lionheart girl,” Nuka had murmured hoarsely to the tiny filly standing beside him on legs that wobbled and buckled but did not give out entirely. He’d called and called from the mouth of the cave, but there came no answering cry - no one to help him save the precious girl at his side. Heart torn, he considered their options. Waiting. Going off in search of a mare with milk. The heat of Salem was relentless, even in the spring, and to force the filly over the uneven, shifting sands would quickly sap what was left of her strength. Though it’d be risky, trying to help her make the swim between Islands, the Crossing was far more hospitable, and surely it wouldn’t be hard to find mares in the Meadow or Falls, where there was fresh water and adequate shelter.
In the end, determined not to give up on the little red filly, Nuka coaxed her to the shoreline just a little to the north, and after gentle encouragement, nudged her into the water ahead of him. “There ‘y’go. ‘S a bit easier’n walkin’, yeah? Jus’ let water carry you.” He worked hard to stay close to her, reaching with his muzzle to help keep her head up. A swelling wave smacked him in the face, and he choked on the burning water, instinctively pulling back to snort harshly to clear the stinging salt from his nostrils. Looked back to the girl beside him, only to find she was no longer there.
Nuka’s heart stuttered in his chest.
“Lionheart girl?” he croaked, wincing from the familiar pain in his hind leg that slowed him as he tried to turn in the rolling waves. “Nah, nah, please, nah,” he gasped, feeling his throat tightening already, and a crushing weight settling upon his chest, so that he found it hard to breathe. “Lionheart girl, where’d y’go?!” The desperate bellow went unanswered. “Lionheart?” The heartbroken plea was swallowed by the waves. “Lionheart!” And he cried out, again and again and again until his throat was raw and his voice naught but an agonised whisper. “Lionheart…”
All the fight went out of him, and the drowning ocean dragged him away.
------
He was a pitiful figure, cutting through the Meadow, limping to all his old haunts, find nothing but ghosts and memories that reminded him of how much he had loved, and how he’d lost lost both. Svenja. Tabaxi. And now, his little lionhearted girl, too. Abandoned and weak and a fighter, just like him. They could’ve been a family, if he hadn’t led her to her death in the sea.
Would the sun of Salem have been a more merciful way to go? Would it have broken Nuka just as badly if he’d watched her starve to death, because he was incapable of protecting her and providing what she needed? No, he wouldn’t have let it come to that. If all hope had been lost, he would’ve cut short her suffering, even if it would have torn his ragged heart to pieces. He’d become the monster he feared he was without hesitation, if it meant sparing the precious filly from a moment of fear and agony.
But she’d drowned in the sea, and he hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.
Svenja and Tabaxi were long-gone. Nuka hoped that they’d returned to what families they had left. He prayed that they were safe. (He’d never said goodbye to either of them, either. There had been so many things he hadn’t said, like ‘ ‘M sorry, fer bein’ th’way I am.’ And ‘Y’mean so much, y’know. So much ta me. ‘M so glad ah met you.’ And maybe even ‘Ah… Mmm… Y’know, I think ah love-’
Lost.
They were lost, and Nuka was lost. For days, and weeks he roamed. Maybe even months. Somewhere along the way he stopped counting the days. It didn’t matter. He was so alone.
And then he wasn’t.
That scent, the one that he’d thought he’d imagined that time in the Falls, when Tabaxi had still been with him… It had been the truth. A scent that he could never forget, though when he followed it, he hardly recognised the lithe, golden mare. She was so alive, so happy, and she laughed at something the almost-matured colt beside her said, fell to untangling the knots in the red boy’s mane, tenderness draped across every line, and love motivating every gentle touch. Sabor had never smiled at Nuka. She’d never loved him.
His mother had abandoned him, and Nuka’s father, he’d hated Nuka for the sins of his mother.
Nuka felt the heat of hatred stirring in the pit of his belly, and turned and fled before he could act on it, for he already knew how it would end. His half-brother would protect the mother they shared, no doubt, and young as he was, Nuka, crippled and lame, physically weak and emotionally drained, would be no match for him. Sabor would not come to his defense. Perhaps she’d turn on him too, and try to snuff out the mistake she had run from years ago.
If he were to die, Nuka didn’t want to go down that way. (Not again.)
It’d be far more peaceful, he thought, to join his lionheart girl in the deep waters of the sea. He ran, blinded by tears, and threw himself into the surf. The sable stallion would never know how lucky he was - minutes after his haphazard dash through the jungle, a hunting cat snuck up on the mirthful mother-son pair and laid them both low. (Even in death, Sabor loved her red child, her body slung over his in one last embrace.)
There was so little strength left in him, and Nuka had so little to live for. He couldn’t bear the thought of his lionheart girl being alone. But the waves that tossed him about didn’t drag him down to her, and he found himself sobbing with bone-deep exhaustion. He closed his eyes against the dying light of the sun, and the last conscious thought he had, as he felt his dragging hooves scrape against sand, was Svenja.
What would he have given, to see her one last time?
Everything, everything.
------
Nuka woke an indeterminate time later, on an unfamiliar shore, body battered and bruised, heart and spirit the same. A heavy sigh slipped from between parched lips as the freckled sabino stallion struggled to summon the strength the raise his head. He squinted his blue-grey eyes at the sparse treeline he could see where the sand gave way to grass only a little farther inland. There seemed to be a figure there, and despite everything, panic and a sense of self-preservation stirred the weakened stallion a little more to life.
But as the figure moved a little closer, and Nuka examined the silhouette a little more closely, he was struck by a sense of familiarity, and was foolish enough (innocent in his ignorance) to let his guard down. It took a moment longer to recall her name. Cerosi. Nuka was not nearly self-assured enough to imagine that he’d made enough of an impression to be remembered by her - the time they’d spent together had been very brief, not more than a night, and then Nuka had slunk away before she’d woken. Nevertheless, with everything that’d happened, he had not the sense to try and make a good impression. The best he felt he could hope for was cold indifference. It was with exhaustion that he sighed, likely coming across as indifferent himself, even dismissive when all he managed to say to her was; “Oh, s’jus’ you…” |