Meadow

CW for death and morbid topics

She struggles against him, which isn’t a surprise, but it fans the flames. He clamps down even harder, the taste of her blood adding to his frenzy, and he gives her a throttle as they reach the shore. The more she struggles, the further from reality Fell seems to stray, until her coughing and sputtering doesn’t even snap him out of his tunnel vision.

It isn’t even her sudden lack of movement that draws him back to earth. For a while, he thinks she has just given up struggling, as though she’s finally realized it’s futile. It isn’t until the Bay looms on the horizon, the central mountain of Tinuval cutting into the sky ahead, that he gets the distinct sense that something is wrong.

It’s the lack of blood that tips him off in the end, and dread settles in him, a slow and heavy weight in his belly that threatens to drag them both down. She had been bleeding when they left the Crossing, but the iron tang has been wholly replaced by the briney taste of saltwater. It was not a large or deep wound he had given her, but it would not have closed so soon, especially with the waves keeping it from drying. It should have still been bleeding.

Fell drags the unmoving, unbleeding mare onto the shore on uncharacteristically trembling legs. Her hooves should have scrabbled at the ocean floor before his even touched down, but they don’t. She should have pushed against his jaws as she got her footing and hauled herself upright on the beach, but she doesn’t.

She should have ripped from his grasp the moment she regained balance and stability on solid ground, but when Fell opens his iron grip on her crest, the filly only crumples, her graying legs folding messily beneath her.

The anger has dissolved, replaced by horror and fear. Fell backs away from the body, his hooves splashing into the waves. The residue taste of blood and brine on his tongue turns rancid, and his stomach rolls. He takes a foolish, tentative step toward her, and gives her jaw a shove with his muzzle to try and wake her up, but he knows it’s useless. Her head only lolls to the side and back.

Numbly, Fell steps around the motionless gray mare and shuffles about beach a little further from the waterline. The tide is out, and the pebbly shore is more exposed, so Fell walks a short distance from the gray sand and begins to dig with one front hoof. He scrapes away black pebbles until the packed sand beneath is exposed, and then he digs further into that. He digs until the sun sets, and then keeps going, taking no breaks even when his muscles begin to scream.

When he is finished, the moon hangs low on the horizon, and stars litter the sky, and he stands elbow-deep in a damp, salty grave.

His numbness now is more exhaustion than horror, but his revulsion and guilt are renewed when he approaches the still figure on the beach. He hardly wants to drag her into the grave; it feels disgustingly poetic that he has already effectively done as much when he hauled her into the sea, but he has no choice. Fell grips her by the crest again, his teeth fitting neatly into the grooves he’s already cut there, and pulls the dead weight of her toward the depression in the sand.

FELL

stallion. 16hh. black. marwari x. Rougaru x visurix.