BOONE
cw // mention of blood and brief description of animal death
Boone had always had a voracious appetite: for food, for women, for travel, and for being a pain in August's ass. So when poor old cracked Ira, his white coat stained pink with blood, had sent Boone off to drag August back to pay for his crimes, he'd jumped at the opportunity. In truth, he knew he would probably never come back. The gang had been falling apart for some time now, and they were at each other's throats more often than not. Ira's mind was slipping, and their last job had been a mess. More than a mess: a disaster. Gloria…
No. He would not think of Gloria.
August hated him for what had happened to her, he knew. Boone had travelled for a whole damn year to find the dunderheaded silver bay, knowing August would likely try to kill him when he did. But he hadn't, and after months of harrying August like a hound at the heels of a buck, the shine of light-hearted harrassment was wearing off. What did he want from this, really? To push the stallion till he snapped? To receive the punishment he deep-down knew he deserved? Boone's mind was a mystery even to himself; he preferred not to think at all. All he knew was what he felt: and he felt like August, in some twisted way, was the closest thing he had to a brother: a brother who hated his guts, to be sure, but a brother nonetheless.
In these down periods when he was not in the Prairie, Boone felt other things he did not understand. It was worst at night. He'd had no more episodes since that unfortunate encounter with the big bastard, thankfully, but it seemed like as soon as the moon came out, Boone's soul turned rancid. Black moods like nothing he'd experienced since Gloria's demise descended upon him while the starry sky slowly spun overhead. He paced listlessly in the dark; he cribbed on branches, sucking in air with deep grunts of pleasure and pain. Once he'd even trampled a mouse that had crept up, whiskers twitching, to sniff at his hoof. He could still hear the sound it had made.
Hell, maybe he was cracked in the head too.
During the day, exhaustion caught up to him and pulled on his eyelids until he was little more than an undead version of himself: barely moving, barely blinking, his mind a fathomless fog. The sun seemed too bright, the sounds of the Crossing too loud. His golden coat twitched with flies that his tail did not rise to scatter. Then one bit him, and the shock of the pain jerked his head up and his eyes open. Ears pinning, he cow-kicked at the parasite, but it had already scattered to the breeze.
It had done him a favor, though: his mind had roused, and his surroundings had sharpened into clarity. He stood in the middle of the meadow, the sun hot on his back, flowers of every color surrounding him like spilled jewels. And, in his peripheral vision, he could see someone approaching.
"Be forewarned, I ain't looking for any company," he drawled, flattening his ears and swinging his head around to fix one sharp blue eye on the stranger.