Standing on the banks of the crossing with his tail hanging in limp strands, Nataanii felt his body tremble. Muscles constricted and released multiple times over, begging to taste freedom of movement. He had been standing stock still for a while now, his blue eyes searching the place in which he stood. It was either one way or the other and he knew which place he should not go. His muscles demanded he go straight in agreement to his heart, but his mind surged to go left. He could either go into the Lagoon against his fathers wishes after leaving Helios to his territory, or he could go to the Commons and let someone else eat him up for a snack or drag him home to collect dust. He was not sure which direction was best for him, but his head turned to the left anyways, deciding right there he knew where to go.


Lifting his hooves and stepping through the grasses, Nataanii listened to the voices that had started to grow in his head. He could hear them, feel them. They had once started out small, picking at all of his faults and demanding he know the reasons his father had treated him like nothing more than a garbage can. They had once told him that his mother died because she could not stand him. He was just a stain upon this land and he had heard the voices so many times over with the same thing that he was starting to go mad. He should have a different name, one that did not make him into his fathers very wants. Nataanii was named that for it meant leader, something Nahawi wanted out of his first ever son. However, Nataanii wanted NOTHING to do with leading the miserable Shore and its washed up herd.


Licking his lips as his eyes flashed with sunlight, Nataanii stepped into the Lagoon finally, his hooves pushing him from the solid ground and straight into the bog. Upon the wind he could scent his half sister, but she had been too young when he left to know who he was. She was three now, he was pushing four. He hated her for it, being their fathers favorite, or so the voices said. He hated her, them, everything that had to do with Atlantis. Feeling his lips curl at those thoughts, Nataanii felt his skin pebble with goose bumps, begging for a taste of something other than rancid hatred upon his tongue.


Far enough into the Lagoon to stop, the stallion let his body quit moving. His head jerked up, ears perked, and eyes bright as he looked around the silent bog. It was not as full of scents as it had once been from what his sire said, but he cared not. Instead, the bay dun felt himself growing a bit more relaxed. The voices still circled in his head, but the healthy young stallion let his head hang as he took a moment to himself. They could claim him or chase him as far as they wanted, but he knew right then as peace knowing he could do something other than be a stallions pawn slithered into his blood. Nataanii was not Nahawi’s son in the way he acted, only blood. It was time for him to make his own story and with a smirk against his pale lips, the half draft knew he picked the right place.

NATAANII

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stallion | 17.1hhs | bay dun | of nowhere

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