Sleep came fitfully or not at all to the overo stallion these days. When he was unconscious, Martyr saw the faces of those he had lost and those whose fates he did not know. His father's mares and his many half siblings – whom he had sworn to protect in the aftermath of his father’s disappearance – were hazy recreations now, the details of their faces lost to time.
In stark contrast, the faces of his immediate family appeared in his mind with great detail, as if he had seen them only moments before. His mother’s dark face, black and blue in the shadow of his waking dreams, was dusted with grey, her irises threaded with spider silk. He could see the red fluff of Testament’s ears and the jagged lines of his sire’s markings. Grief for the three of them washed over the blue roan without fail as they came and then faded.
Tribulation’s face was surly, his mismatched black and silver eyes accusatory. ‘You’re not my father,’ the tovero had said once. ‘Stop acting like you could ever be like him.’ The grullo hadn’t known their father Viral in life; he’d only grown up with the memories and descriptions Martyr and Emerson told him. Still, the words had stung the older paint. He had idolized their sire and strove to make something of himself, but nothing had ever stuck. Except Emerson.
Roused from the parade of faces, the overo lifted his head and yawned. His tongue ran over and around the inside of his mouth, dry and thick from the night. Martyr snorted softly at himself. The world around him was cast in the first glimmers of dawn. The faith the stallion had that he would find his sister had been strained over the course of spring. Three seasons ago, the search had begun. That was when he had first discovered that Emerson had not gone to the Peak when she had first departed from the Harbor.
With a grunt, the blue roan left the small copse he had tucked himself inside the previous night. His hooves skittered over the rocks as the stallion made his way around the stony base of the Falls to the pool. He drank long and deep, washing the sleep from his maw. When he finally turned, ready to brainstorm where to look next, Martyr noticed another coming to the pool.
blue roan overo mustang mutt stallion . 16.1 hands