The tone in her voice the moment she snapped back at him made him feel like a scolded colt. He flicked his ears back and privately wrestled with his guilt. There was a kinder way to ask what he had, rather than pointing out the blatantly obvious that there were things she didn’t know that he did. Castillon made a mental note to try his best to be a little more careful in how and what he said to her just as the pretty gold mare glanced up at the sky and then said, show me.
Another trait similar to his father’s was Castillon’s inability to remain emotionally unreadable; he did not have the cleverness of his mother, nor the mask that life had taught her to wear. Castillon’s life had been too kind to him, and he had not yet learned the hard lessons to guard himself and his heart better than he currently did. Excitement immediately took over the somewhat deflated shame he’d been showing moments ago, a bright smile quick to light up his expression. His tail flicked off his haunches and he tossed his head, trotting a few steps to the south. “It’s this way, come on!”
With too much energy already building at her request to be shown something else that was new, Castillon could not keep himself at a calm walk. He burst into a trot that soon stretched into a lope, hoping the golden girl would match his pace. Together they could stretch their legs over the endless, rolling hills of the Prairie; he’d be careful to keep away from where the prairie dogs made their dens so neither of them would snap a limb. As nervous as the Prairie’s openness often made other horses, Castillon had always reveled in it. Where else could one run, unobstructed, for miles and miles? There were trees dotted across the landscape, but they were not plentiful as they were in other territories; there were no grand forests to have to weave your body through and around.
Soon, though, he was pulling up his gait and slowing himself down just in time to trot a little toward the summit of a rolling hill, then come to a stop. His skin was warm from the run, but it felt good. He glanced over at the mare, then down toward the little grove he had led her to. There was no rhyme or reason to how the pomegranate trees had grown, planted by the animals who’d eaten the first seeds and discarded them at random across the grove one way or another. There was at least twenty of the pomegranate trees, though, some much larger and with great big branches that drug toward the ground, weighed down by the heavy fruit they grew, and others that were much smaller and still growing. Their leaves were a mix of green, yellow, and those halfway through the process; some fruit had split and fallen to the ground, some had split and were still hanging from the branches. They were best at the beginning of fall, but there were still plenty of decently ripe ones if you knew how to look.
Castillon, still unperturbed by her occasional snapping, tilted his head and grinned at Zira. “Come on, I’ll show you how to find the best ones,” he offered, then started down the sloping, grassy hill and into the grove. Once they were in the little valley, the bowl of hills that enclosed them took away the sounds of the wind sweeping the Prairie and seemed to envelope them in a soft hush. Castillon tilted his head as he glanced at the nearest tree, brown eyes searching each red fruit that had grown along its branches but noticed all of them were split. He shook his head and glanced at Zira, “This one is no good, the birds and squirrels have gotten to them all; you don’t want to eat one that’s already been broken open.”
The next tree over showed much more promise. “Aha, here we go!” He couldn’t keep the almost boyish excitement from his voice or stop himself from throwing his head and prancing the last few steps before he stopped by the tree. He gestured toward a deep red fruit hanging off an easy-to-reach branch. “You want to find the ones that are vibrant, if they’re pale you can still eat them, but they won’t be as sweet.” He glanced at her and said, “You can eat the rind on the outside if you want, it doesn’t really taste like anything, just kind of bitter, but if you don’t like it, you can also drop the fruit on the ground and break the rind with your hoof; there’s a ton of tiny little bits of fruit inside that you eat.”
Castillon absolutely would have offered to pluck it from the tree and offer it to her, ever the gentleman, but he was starting to be a bit more careful of the golden girl’s pride. Something told him she didn’t want to be handed something by him, she’d likely rather take it for herself. He waited, though, wanting her to take the fruit and try it first before he looked around and took one for himself.
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