His belly gurgled. Revolting at the appearance of just water and grass. It yearned for more sustenance, just like his heart yearned for his mother. He lifted his head from the running water, droplets falling from his loose lower lip as he let his eyes frantically search around him. It was tiring, being on guard. He wanted nothing more than to curl up underneath the pillar that was his mother. He loved doing that. She’d find a thick patch of grass that would keep her busy in one place for a while, and he’d make himself as small as possible beneath her feet. Not that it had been easy lately. He had gotten to the point where he was almost as tall as she was. He was clearly too big of a foal for her.
The guilt ate at his gut. If he hadn’t grown so much, mom wouldn’t have been so skinny, she’d have been able to make the swim. He caused this. Why did he have to be so big compared to her?! The guilt tore him up, his head dropped, nose brushing at the grass along the water's edge. No appetite. His legs trembled beneath his weight. He hadn’t eaten enough to keep his strength up, that much was certain. The trembling got to the point where he couldn’t hold himself up any longer. And his long gangly legs folded beneath his weight.
He moved his head in time to avoid the water, but it was as if a switch had flipped and all of his drive had been sapped. Gone in an instant. Not long had passed before the sound of a twig snapping caused his flight instincts to kick in. He sprang up, legs unsteady, his head whipping around in every direction, too fast, too unfocused to see the large black form nearing him.
He cried out, a shrill whinny that for any other foal would alert the mother, for him, it reverberated off the rocks, echoing slightly. It was then that his eyes fell upon the large black stallion. Panic rose in his chest, his eyes darting around trying to find an escape route. Not that the stallion had given him a reason to panic. He’d done nothing wrong. But Lucà knew no different. The sound of the stallion’s voice reached him, his legs poised, cocked and ready to propel him in the opposite direction of the inked form.
The question made his heart rate slow, wondering why this male cared so much. It was the next question that caused his heart to fall. ‘Where is your mother?’ A pitiful whinny escaped him as he looked to the east. If you looked hard enough you could see the shoreline, just barely. He wondered to himself if her body would wash ashore or just sink into the abyss.
“Gone.” It was all he could manage to speak. Nothing more. His eyes casting back towards the large male. He felt as if he was in a fog, trying to focus on the stallion before him. His legs relaxed, ever so slightly, not enough to go back to the ground, but enough that he wasn’t tense and ready to flee.