With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane; He expects so many things from her. Horror, revulsion – perhaps even hatred. Any of it would be understandable, for he has known and expected such things all his life. They have largely come from within, of course, but there have been plenty of outside sources. He is all too familiar with despair. What he does not expect is compassion. Even understanding. It almost breaks him, because he was not prepared for it. Although he stands before her raw, he had expected salt in his wounds instead of salve, and kindness, to him, is strange. He listens to her talk, to explain that there is someone she would kill. He wonders what atrocities this other horse had committed to incite such a feeling in her, for she gives off no sense of bloodlust. You are certainly less terrible than I am, she says, and he laughs, a sound that surprises him, that sounds foreign in his throat. “I doubt that. I’m sure whoever they are, they would deserve it more than…more than she did.” He doesn’t know the extent of his mother’s sins, that there were plenty who wished her dead. He doesn’t know that she killed her own mother, that there is an awful matricidal history haunting his blood. She continues on, more kindness that he doesn’t know how to swallow. He isn’t used to this, to others knowing one of his worst sins and remaining by his side, understanding him. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, feels something like panic – a different sort, a confusion. He doesn’t want to run – not anymore – but he isn’t sure how to process her words, so at odds with the story he has told himself for years. “Thank you, Agetta,” he says, “your words mean more than you know. I don’t…I don’t talk about her much. About what happened. There’s not many who know. Or, there weren’t…” For if she saw, if she was there too, how many others? No. He cannot think about it. “For a lady who would kill a certain someone if given a chance, you’re very kind,” he says, and he manages a smile. And then, without fully realizing it, he touches her, just briefly, his muzzle to her neck. It’s bold, for him, but he is newly drunk on forgiveness, and she is there, kind and warm, looking at him like he might matter, Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. |
@[Agetta]