Aldebaran
[al DEH bur rahn]
✮ no wife ✮
▻ no children ◅
He is wild with it, crazed with it, drunk with it. The race, the pounding of his own heart in his ears, the way he could drink down gulp after gulp of air through his flared nostrils with each methodical breath. He is free, tonight. Free of his search, free of his obligation to set loose his brothers from their capturers, free from the burden of refinding the strayed children, free from every worldly thing other than the sand beneath and the night above. It was not as though they ONLY worshiped the night - they were, after all, children of Atum and Ra - but the night was a holy time for the brothers. For Antares, the time to remove the mantle of leader and simply be himself. For Rigel, a time for his mind to not be whirring, spinning, circling - and when he was no longer tormented during captivity. For Atair, a time to rise to the occasion and remember the mirror he was for the goddess who had gifted him the sky across his back. For him, though? The second to youngest son of Sirius and Mira?
For him it was when he had the truest form of himself.
When he whirls on her, speeding past her in the opposite direction - she takes his challenge without even a breath of hesitation. She laughs with him, just as so many before her also had found themselves unable to help it, and they speed off into the empty hours of night ahead. He lets up a shrill clarion call, despite losing some breath for the exerted effort of creating sound. She does not miss any step, does not waste much movement, seems to run on sheer determination. It goads him, provokes in him the part of beast that doesn’t care about the fact there are rulers of the world or territorial boundaries to respect. He is raw, high on the coursing adrenaline that having a racing partner dredges up in him.
She does well, as only a few could ever do, in spurring her littler legs faster - the heavier meat on them allowing her to propel herself faster despite her added thickness adding weight to her every hoof hitting the shifting sand beneath. His heart threatens to burst at the abandon with which she races him, with how she shifts her strides when she finally reaches alongside him. He only settles back into his strides when his wide nostrils gather the scent of her in spite of the wind rushing at them. Her body is growing wetter with sweat, her state of season as impossible to miss in his nostrils as the moonlight creating a silver etching to every edge of her.
She comes abreast of him then and it is enough for him to stagger his strides to smell her beside him, her teeth bringing him to toss his head and her limbs bringing him up to tuck his haunches and avoid potential collision or collapse. She laughs, in spite of the danger and he finds this only more intoxicating in this moment of flooding adrenaline-- his shrill surprised shriek turning to a rolling bellow as he pivots on his hind legs and sends a whirlwind of dust spinning all around them.
When he plants all four feet on the sand, it is still with dancing movements, with fire in both his eyes and blood. She had almost had them both tangled and thrown into the earth at speeds no horse would do well experiencing on anything but the sand that coated this place. The danger puts an edge on the high, the drunkenness that ceases to allow that process of thought that gives her identity or rank beyond Female, beyond Woman, beyond Challenger, beyond His. His for now because she had used dirty tricks to end their challenge, his for now because his brain was no longer in the civilized place that Princes are meant to. His enough that he lunges in towards her with a race-roughened nicker.
She is perfection, even with her trickery, for having even come abreast to him. She is beautiful while drenched in the sweat of determination, of effort, of revelry in the race. It is the one thing that had only ever been his - Atair with his battle, Rigel with his knowledge, Antares with his nobility and duty. She had crossed into HIS world, had taken up HIS challenge. His teeth grasping for her withers is not done with any anger or danger, only fire and heat and want. He does not think about status or station or whether there was a right or wrong. The scent of her, the movement of her, the flow of mane and tail over flesh called him to her.
He is no brute, though. His teeth would be careful, despite being earnest. A kick from her would land him on the earth and sober his mind enough to deter his advance. He is drunk but he is still Aldebaran, Prince of Mira, Avatar of the god of winds and freedom, Shu. He would never take the freedom of choice over her body from her. One breath from her could douse the fire they felt, but one moments of acceptance and those twin fires fueled by the race would become one.
OF THE LOST ISLANDS WILDS
▻ nine years - arabian - sooty bay rabicano - 15.2 hh ◅