The dark mare stays close to the shadows, skirting the places the other horses congregate. In the darkness, she and her beaked son are quiet and nearly invisible, and that suits her well. She is possessive of the colt. Obsessive. He is her colt and she is disinclined to share him. This avariciousness borders on unnatural, although she does not notice it, that stain of madness in her family line hiding the threads of control the colt has needled into her heart. If outsiders notice it, it doubtless comes as no surprise to them that the muttering mare in the hedgerow is an odd mother and raises her child in this strange and anti-social way.

For his part, Dreamscar relishes the attention. A mother should love her child. She should be his best friend, she should be willing to sacrifice herself for his needs, his safety, his comfort. Although she had needed a bit of coaxing at first with that power that he hadn’t known was in him. It was easier now. Perhaps it was the madness that made it easier to control her. Perhaps it was his increasing skill with the unusual power. He could use it more efficiently now and no longer needed to club her over the head with it. He remembers their first few days, when the black mare staggered and jerked, her eyelids drooped, the white of her eyes bloodshot, she was literally drunk on love of him.

The hungry touch of his dam’s muzzle on his hip brings him back to the present and he looks up at her with a wide smile shining in his amber eyes. She is his everything, as he is hers. As it has been for as long as he has known her, for his entire short life. It is only the two of them. His own heart swells to see the worship in her face, reflecting back at him the selfish love that he has instilled there. He does not know how to not be selfish and she cannot teach him.