ooc: trigger warning for sensitive material in this post. Psychedelic is currently losing his mind and having trouble remembering what’s present-time and what’s the past. He is remembering horrible things he has done such as abuse (both of a mare and of a foal) as well as some non-con. While he doesn’t go into much detail about these things, they are mentioned. If there is something I should mention in the forewarning that I did not please let me know so I can edit this post.
One… two… three…
The playfully drawn out counting from a young girl’s lips made the old stallion’s ears twitch. He took a sharp, sudden breath, body almost lurching as his eyelids snapped open. Panic strained the lines of his features, brown eyes rolling back, whites flashing. Every muscle in his body was tense, sides suddenly heaving with the effort of large breaths.
...four… five… six… seven…
His pounding heart calmed. He caught his breath and sighed in relief. His muscles relaxed. It was just Talya he was hearing nearby. He must’ve dozed off when she asked to play hide-and-seek, so now she was counting and he was supposed to hide.
She was young, just a little over two, and he had the pair of them sheltered on Crossing Isle, tucked away from the Lagoon, hidden in areas too difficult for a day-traveler to get to. Every day was a game - it was the easiest way to keep his simple daughter obedient - and he managed to keep making her play the ones that kept her away from everyone. She was a plague onto his existence from the day she latched herself onto his side; every day he looked at her and saw the most heinous crimes he had committed to her mother to bring her into this world - and Talya smiled and giggled and called him Mamapapa and looked at him with so much love it made him hate himself worse than he ever had.
eight… nine… ten… ready or not here I come! The counting concluded with excitable giggles and Psychedelic lifted his head, blinking away the sleep-bleariness that seemed to stick like a cloudy film over his eyes, then rubbed them on his knee and looked again. He twitched his ears to catch where his daughter was, but she’d gone far - she’d gone the opposite direction of where she was supposed to go.
The panic swelled up in him again. Psychedelic choked out a whiny as he launched forward, stumbling on aching legs up the hillside and through the shrubs, into the meadow nearby. Talya was supposed to know not to go into open areas like this, she was supposed to know. That was the problem with her. She did know; his daughter was just too curious for her own stupid good.
His ears twisted back angrily as his yellow-brown eyes flashed around the open area, looking for where his damnable daughter had gotten off to. He even struck the ground a few times in front of him, angry at anyone that was nearby.
Only… the problem was… the filly he’d overheard counting wasn’t Talya. It had been years since he’d finally driven Talya away from him. He knew she was somewhere on the islands still, he’d caught her scent on Atlantis once… but the previous boss of the Lagoon was in and out of a lucid state. As his body slowly failed him, so did his mind, making him relive memories of his past sins as though they were happening in real time. He was convinced he had been watching over his daughter and she’d somehow evaded him into the meadow; he was convinced anyone he came across was helping hide her, believing whatever sob story she’d had and sticking their nose where it didn’t belong.
Most of the time he was able to snap out of this fugue state before it was too late; before he could harm anyone who didn’t deserve it. But he was losing himself more and more and struggling to find a way to stay in reality with each day that passed.
“Where is she?” He shouted, looking with accusation at the nearest horse. If he knew them, it didn’t appear that he did. He only glared angrily. “Are you hiding her?”
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