Short staccato words find my ears. The silver black mare is speaking to me, that brief way she does, sometimes barely a sentence. My copper colored eyes trace the lines of her mouth, the movement of her lips as she speaks. Each word is its own roll of the tongue, the press of the pink flap against ivory teeth. Syllables pull and stretch the corners of velveteen lips. Stranger, Reuen tells me, as I nod and continue my approach. I don’t cow away from the newcomer, I am too smart, or too inexperienced to have the same caution my Mother did around stallions.
I place my graying head beneath the silvered woman’s maw, and nibble gentle at the whiskers I find there. Safe she says, once again expressing her thoughts in snippets, my ears flicker as her warm breath blows past them. Flyaway strands of ebony stray with static against the cold, I press my flesh to hers and turn my attention to the male. My stare is cool, calculating as I judge him, finding the curves of skin and wandering over each hair.Ledger, first Reuen says and then the stag confirms in his own bearish voice. The sound is crackling to my eardrums, something that does not match his toasty and rich colored coat.
He is the warm tones of the sun and summer, a honeyed hue that is quite different to what I am used to seeing. The silver that toned the It was more akin to the color of my cruel eyes, than to any pelt that currently graced our home. We were mostly a monochromatic color, drab and lackluster. Funny, I think, how I now conclude that this completely matched the outlook the other herds had of us. We were a bore, we were not a threat, we were to be ignored and tolerated at most.
Heaven’s Gates they called this place, and here we were, smudging it up with the mundane. Perhaps we could use some new blood, or some old blood by his next words. Not exactly a new comer, but still fresh to the Gates and all that had transpired since his departure. Surely this place had been something worthwhile, if only once, for him to want to come back. It was nice enough of course and it was my home, but it wasn’t necessarily exciting. I am sure that the Gates would have him, the Gates would have many and more, including the corrupt mind I stored in my own head. I decide that this male is no threat to my friend, no threat to our home. A curious thought finds me and I speak, ”What was it like? Before?” What was enough to bind him here?
