29 July 10 - 23:57The Horse
It was a warm spring day when she awoke. The forest had retreated in the time she had slept, now not more than a few bits of woods around a pretty meadow or two. An idea had tickled her mind as she slept, partially disturbed by a horse digging at the roots of her tree that winter, looking for food. Without waking, she sheltered them, the whole small herd, in her ancient glade. Yet now she was awake.Not many of her kind were left in the world, spirits from the dawn of time, but she did not care. The developments that ringed her bit of woods did not encroach upon her most sacred soil, the trees were safe, and so she did not notice. She watched the herd run in her meadow, houses unseen just beyond on all sides, and allowed her dream to make itself apparent. She built the idea one step at a time, then, near completion, she found the host she sought.
It was a dappled grey mare, the same that had made the ancient prayer to her roots, unknowing. Sturdy and wise, as far as horses go, she was called over and made to sleep at the foot of the great tree. By the powers of an ancient goddess, the gift was made. She sank back into sleep then, as the mare shook her head and trotted off to the rest of the herd. Slept, but not so deeply as before. She felt the passing of the summer, autumn's breath passed her by, but the chill of winter again roused her to fitful slumber, and the snow did not fall so heavily in the woods that year.
Spring came and went before she awoke, to see what she had wrought. A brief panic, to realize she had overslept, when there was so much to do, so quick. She took a human form then, an made a home within the mortal world. A young girl of perhaps 14 or 15 years of age, one that no one questioned about parents or education. A house, empty and newly finished in a row of such houses, was considered bought and owned. A small change in the world, and easy to accomplish so close to her own lands. The neighbors did not think it odd- in fact, few ever thought of it at all, too busy in their every day mundanity.
The black colt was easy to find. Only a few months old, and bigger than some yearlings. Few made it through the winters unscathed, but he was healthy as though there had been no privation- as indeed there had not been, for him. Branches slid their snow when his mother walked past, carrying him in her womb. Branches of new growth were found to browse upon where she had slept, even in the heart of winter. Under the boughs of the evergreens, wind did not reach that year.
She called him, half-fey colt of hers, and brought him to the house. He was kept in the garage, taken for walks with a lead around his neck, to learn the ways of mortals. She thought him charming, so she called him Tsarmn, the word corrupted to a name. The winters passed by, the summers spent beneath the trees. Grain was put out by locals for the herd in wintertimes now, and the offerings were accepted by the Lady as her due. The herd flourished, but Tsarmn was strange to them, and they fled when he came near.
By the second year, he was large enough to ride. The girl, having only half the substance of mortal flesh, was no burden. The third year, he ran away twice into the woods, and she had to chase him through it for hours, calling his name as he sought the elusive herd that he could smell. He met his mother there, the only one who would come close enough to sniff his nose. They knew he was a different breed of horse. They were mixed, a strain of hotbloods tempered by breeding wild, until all were family in one form or another. He was several hands higher than they, a warhorse larger than many draft breeds, and black as coal when few of them were dark. Moreover, he had great hairy black fetlocks, feet the size of dinner plates, and a rough, uncarved look about his muscles and his face, like the faces of men and women that peek, half-carved, from trunks and boles of trees. No showman would ever say that he was beautiful, no equestrian that he was sleek. Yet he was sturdy, deep-winded, and strong, and in his broad dark skull was a mind that could think.
Not as clearly as you or I, but enough to know things about the wind and the weather, and to make guesses about this and that. He could understand saving food for tomorrow, and delaying pleasure until work was done. He could also speak, though he had no speaking tongue.
Instead, he made pictures of the mind, from his to those around him, colored with their meanings, layered with feeling and emotion. He loved small children best, when they were at the age of walking, but tiny and full of wonder at his shape. Not scared or shy, to whom he could speak his mind without a flinch or shy of fear.
As he grew up, the girl began to fade. Gods can only remain mortal for so long before they begin to wane, after all. Tsarmn moved from the house, now a rickety old thing partially eaten by age as the forest reasserted its strength, into the woods beyond. A black spirit then he was claimed to be, flitting trough the woods, its lord and master. Yet flesh and blood for all of that, companion to the trees and the woods spirit who again slumbered there. No comments No trackbacks
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