The combination of Maziel’s soft nicker and the cloud of fragrance from the disturbed pine branch wake Fell from his almost-sleep. He hadn’t been in the process of falling asleep, in which case, Maziel’s presence may have interrupted him. Rather, he lingered for the past hour or so in a state of dissociation that more or less felt like sleep. If the blind mare hadn’t approached him, Fell might have remained in that odd spaced-out state, perpetually feeling not quite here, but not quite anywhere else.

Her voice brings him at least somewhat back to the present. His eyes, half-lidded and unfocused, flicker all the way open and blink a few times. His yellow irises contract as full daylight is allowed into his pupils again, but then they dilate when they fall on Maziel’s curious face peering in his direction through the trees.

Fell is quite numb, but when Maziel tells him she’s been worried (about him) he feels like crying for some reason.

No one should ever worry about him. He turns his face away from her in shame, curling his thick, scarred neck until the whiskers on his chin brush the broad pane of one shoulder. His ears fall back against his neck, as though they want to pin — and thus push away — but he feels too tired to hold them there, and they splay to the sides instead. Right now he is glad, in a very small and guilty way, that he cannot speak, and that Maziel cannot see him pushing her away like this, because as soon as she curls up on himself to block out the blind mare and her concern, he feels so much worse.

The dark, heavy feelings are enticing to Fell. So long he has stood on the edge of the pit, teetering, listening to the rocks tumble down behind his heels, that it feels like a relief to simply lean into the free fall. Fighting gravity is exhausting, and grasping Maziel’s outstretched hand feels like far too monumental a task for him to accomplish. He is… almost able to ignore it, to continue falling, to just give up and be done. And even though he knows that this is just one night of many, one outstretched hand of many, one freefall of many (for surely he will start this all over again tomorrow) the descent feels so final as to lend more gravity, more pull toward the bottom of the pit.

He almost lets himself continue to fall, but something about Maziel’s pale, worried face incites a panic in him. He is falling, and there is ground rushing up to meet him at some point. Every night, he falls, forgetting that every morning he will smash upon the earth below and have to claw himself back up again, and that is truly exhausting. Is it not easier to just… remain at the edge of the cliff? To crawl just a little bit at a time, instead of necessitating an entire vertical climb every morning?

The panic feels enormous within him, but instead of jolting forward like one jolts awake when they dream of falling as he might have expected from the magnitude of his mental pivot, Fell takes a tiny little step. And then another. His neck uncurls like a new leaf, and he presses the flat pane of his forehead into Maziel’s chest.

FELL

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