cw: death

The anxiety that blooms in Khoshekh’s chest is immediate and sickening when he hears the call for danger. His reaction is involuntary – a heavy breath of exasperation and fear, his body responding instinctively to the sounds he has heard so many times before.

It’s happening again.

Fell had gone so long without instigating anything, slighting anyone, thieving from any vengeful band stallions that Khoshekh had almost begun to feel at peace. He had even thought Kohelet might come back to them, if Fell stayed out of trouble for long enough. He had gotten his hopes up. Charmeine safe from being collateral damage, his mother back in the Bay with all of his siblings, his father perhaps even soothed of his demons – Khoshekh, relieved from his duty of surrogate parent to his own barbaric and tormented sire.

It was too much to hope for, of course, and Khoshekh’s sigh of exasperation is followed by another one of outright irritation. Why couldn’t his life just be normal? He doesn’t even want to step in this time. He usually doesn’t get physically involved, but most of the time something terrible happens in the Bay, he’s right there, mediating, doing damage control. Well, not this time, he thinks; Fell is on his own.

Then, when the inevitable fight breaks out following that single cry for help, Khoshekh is shocked to hear the unmistakable sounds of multiple horses fighting at once. Sometimes, when trouble comes to the Bay, either Khoshekh or one of the tougher mares will come to Fell’s aid to fight off an intruder, but this sounds like a scuffle of four or five.

Alarmed, frightened, and guilty for nearly leaving Fell and whichever unfortunate mare was the target this time to fend for themselves without even a supportive presence, Khoshekh takes off. His heart thunders with dread as he breaks through the trees and skids to a halt on the beach. He was right; through the whirlwind of fighting, Khoshekh can make out four attacking horses, with Fell in the middle of them.

To the side he sees Pacific Rim and her newborn foal, whose name he does not yet know. He hasn’t grown close to Rim in the blue roan mare’s time in the Bay; in fact, they’ve never exchanged so much as a word, only friendly sounds of greeting in passing. From what Kho understands, Rim came willingly to the Bay, and is even one of the rare affectionate mares toward Fell. She not only seems to like him, but perhaps even feel some sort of warmth toward the Beast of the Bay. He shouldn’t be surprised, and Kho feels instantly guilty for this train of thought, as though his own father – who has never treated him poorly or hurt any of the mares here under his own roof – is so far from being a likable individual.

It’s true, though, a small voice inside him whispers, and Khoshekh knows it’s right. He feels love and disappointment in equal measures for his father.

The squeal of the infant girl rouses Khoshekh from his turbulent daydream and he stirs into action. He squashes down his fear, aware now that Rim and her child are entirely too close to the fighting, and that Fell is sorely outnumbered. Whatever his feelings toward his father, Khoshekh cannot stand by and watch an innocent child get hurt, so he leaps toward the chaos with a territorial, albeit nervous, cry.

He makes for Rim and the child first, inspecting the filly rapidly from a few feet away to determine if she needs to be whisked away, but she seems unhurt. As he turns toward the attackers, he takes a stray hoof to his temple before he even fully turns his head from Rim. It’s one of the attackers circling around after a generous dose of abuse from Fell, and the strike isn’t meant for Khoshekh, but it splits the delicate skin over his left eye all the same. Blood runs in a livid curtain down his cheek and forms a rivulet at his throat to continue its course toward the ground. Soon he will be leaving crescent hoofprints filled with it, and his sight is now impaired before he’s even joined the fight.

Suddenly Khoshekh is furious. He’s been hit before, in spars and the occasional real deal as a helping hand for Fell, and each time he must swallow back the ugly thing that blossoms like a wildfire within him. He knows exactly what it is; it’s Fell’s beast, his grandfather’s beast, his great-grandfather’s beast. Khoshekh does not want the beast. He hates what it has done to his father. He feels ashamed every time it stirs, though it stirs so rarely it’s easy enough to forget that he has it. Usually Khoshekh is prepared, and the stirring never graduates to an uncoiling.

This time, though, Khoshekh is so taken off guard by the accidental blow to his head, so alarmed by novelty of a small army on the shores of his home, that the carefully monitored fury within him is suddenly wide awake. He forgets his fear, his inhibitions; all he knows in this moment, as he watches the broad back of the horse that hit him, is blind, violent loathing. Khoshekh lunges for them, sliding alongside them as they dance at the edge of Fell’s range of attack. He shoves the intruder away from his father, separating them from the pack with vengeful bites to their already bloodied face and neck. The pair shuffles forward, side by side, their shoulders and hips jostling together as their hooves scrape the damp, cold sand for purchase. They shove against one another, taking shots back and forth, and Khoshekh is sated for a few moments by a particularly damaging bite to his opponent’s nose.

Then the intruder grabs Khoshekh’s ear in their teeth, and the beast inside of him roars so hard Kho is certain the other horse must hear it.

But they don’t, and continue to yank and twist his curled ear, until Khoshekh is so angry he can’t stand it, and he wrenches away. Unlike his father, Khoshekh is able to keep his ear, but he doesn’t keep his head. The young raven-black stallion turns to face the intruder, eyes rolling with mad fury, ears pinned tightly to his glossy neck. The fight intensifies, each opponent rearing and bashing the other with hooves and knees and the full weight of their chests, unable to break free of one another until Khoshekh gives the other such a shove as to give himself at least a foot of breathing room.

Kho takes advantage, using his freedom of movement to spin about until his hindquarters are within range of the enemy. He leaps into the air, his front hooves hitting the sand just as his hind hooves fire outward with heightened range from his buck. He makes devastating contact; he can feel the crack of the other horse’s skull beneath his right hind hoof. He must have hit them squarely in the side of the head. He turns to see his opponent stumble, dazed, then stand strangely still. Khoshekh understands at once that this one is out of the fight, and he turns back toward Fell to help fend off another one.

He doesn’t get far. Though his blood still sings with fury and adrenaline, it falters and comes to a stuttering, hollow silence when Khoshekh hears the chilling impact of an entire body hitting the ground behind him, unhindered by effort to soften the fall or catch itself. Kho turns around slowly, and sees with horror that his opponent — who, moments ago, had been lively and determined and a good match for the raven black stallion— is dead in the sand.