There is a buzzing in his head that makes conscious thought hard to manage, the words and concepts fuzzy around the edges. He knows that he hurts, that he is too hot and too cold, that he is so, so tired. But he is alive, somehow. It does not make sense to him; he was dead, or had been dead, he was sure of it. Only he didn't think a dead thing could still feel thirst, or hurt, or hunger.

A scatter of stones interrupts the buzzing and he draws in a ragged, raw breath to listen, his ears twitching discordantly toward the sound. He still dare not open his eyes wide against the disorienting glare, but he listens all the same, his pink rimmed nares fluttering with the need to draw in the scent of whoever - whatever - it is that approaches. Her smell invades his nostrils and fills him with a sense of comfort that threatens to undo what little control the overo had over his emotions. Ripple was beloved and familiar, and while he oft went days without being able to find her or their wayward son, he knew that she was near.

Words tumbled from her mouth so quickly he could not catch them all, and like water cupped in careful fingers, they nonetheless spilled through the cracks, leaving only droplets behind. Your Ripple. Here. I promise. Please. Fight.

Love.

He does not have the coherency to recognize the myriad implications that come attached to her utterance of such a word, but he feels their importance in his bones. The meaning of the word, of the feeling, draws him more firmly to the present, forcing the lure of oblivion to weaken and grow distant. A faint nicker - more nostril flutter than sound - left his parched throat as he felt her shade fall over his eyes. He cracked open his gaze to peer up at her and was struck poignantly by how angelic she looked with the sunny halo around her pretty face, setting every wayward strand of her mane aglow.

"Love," he echoed, the sound garbled by his mangled throat, cut up and raw. But he tried again, putting feeling into even as he tried - despite the pain and exhaustion - to roll upright, wanting to do nothing more than press his muzzle against her cheek. "Love"

The attempt made him cough and he fell back to the ground without making contact, his nostrils flaring as he tried to quiet the riot of pain ricocheting through his body. Raegar blinked up at his Ripple and tried for a smile, but the gesture fluttered only faintly before disappearing as fitful sleep took him again.

---

For a moment, the loudly marked colt hovered in indecision where his mother had paused, uncertain why the decision to stay or go felt like it might fundamentally change his future. As a near-yearling, he spent a fair amount of time ranging away from his mother and exploring the Badlands in which he was raised, but this felt different. The worry on her face was uncommon, and while the boy might have ascribed it to the interloper attempting to take charge of his father's homeland, he knew better.

Something was wrong.

And because something was wrong, he could not leave his momma to face it alone.

The overo followed anxiously along behind his mother until, together, they found the prone form of his sire. He paused, frozen, as she continued onward. By all initial accounts, Ragar looked dead. It was only the faint rise of his ribs and his eventual interaction with Senu that convinced the yearling that this was not the case, but death still hung in the air around them. The sickly sweet aroma of someone very ill pervaded the rocky depression where Raegar lay, and Sway could not make his feet move closer.

young stallion - mutt - seal bay overo - 15.1h - rafe x velahrn