It's Not Stalking [Rae/Open]

[Illu]

  The hoof-prints were old, hard, and baked solid into the dry ground. Spring’s bipolar weather had decided to throw in weeks of rain followed by oppressive heat, so anything that hadn’t had the time to be washed away was practically cooked into the almost-cracking soil.

  But it wasn’t just one set of hoof-prints, it was many. Damn near impossible numbers of hooves that had churned the earth; large ones, medium ones, even the occasionally tiny point of a foals feet. A herd had moved through here, that much was obvious, but woah, if that was the case it was one of the largest mobs of horses Nillam had ever seen. Twenty-five, maybe less, maybe more, and he didn’t even want to think too hard about the stallion that must run such a monstrosity.

  The red dun colt sniffed at the prints, head low to the ground as a cavalcade of scents reached his nostrils. It was almost too much to sort out. Mares, some in estrus, the scent of which triggered a deeply rooted instinct to pursue, and foals, new ones, barely old, and the stronger more distinctive scent of a stallion randomly dispersed through the tracks.

  The colt lifted his head, exhaling loudly. Oh Gods. This was good. A herd that large meant an extremely powerful or aggressive stallion, yes, but it would also mean daughters. Daughters old enough to be lured away, or at least worthy of a look. The lead stallion shouldn’t miss those. And even if none were left, a herd that size would be worth keeping track of. Who knew what they could get up to?

  Curiosity killed the quoll, and all.

  They seemed to have moved away again after some time here, and not too long ago either, judging by the fact trace smells still lingered. Nillam lifted his head, trying to peer further down the way and so engrossed in the idea of following a herd that size he wasn’t really paying attention to much else.

[Ehetere]

In the scrub nearby a grulla filly stirred. She was barely three years of age, a little larger than average in build and fairly unremarkable. She had been trailing the huge herd for security - though a lot slower whenever they moved off to find better grazing.

She stretched her nose out - sniffing curiously. She could no longer hear or smell the presence of the large herd belonging to the King of the High Country. Only the normal sounds of the creatures of the bush could be heard, and Milleara realised she was alone again. She would need to catch up with the herd as quickly as she was able.

Navigating her way out of the scrub was difficult for her - more difficult than it would have been for most other brumbies. She had chosen that spot to sleep because it protected her and hid her from view quite nicely, but it was an effort and a half to make her way out again. She slowly and carefully nosed her way through bushes and past trees, using her nose as a tentative way of finding what obstacles may be in front of her.

Coming to a halt in what appeared to be a small clearing she sniffed at the ground cautiously, wary of unseen drops in terrain or cliff edges. She could smell the King’s herd more clearly now - and her soft nose brushed over their hoof prints. She could see them… sort of. Anything too far away from her head may as well be indeterminate clouds in the sky for all the shapes she could make out. Colour sure, but everything was so blurry it was incomprehensible.

Just as she was thinking this, she rand head-long into a trunk she had not detected, and Milleara came to an abrupt halt, shaking her head. She was eternally thankful she had the old mare from her mother’s herd to guide her through winter; else she suspected she would have starved.

She continued on, aiming to investigate the clearing where the King’s herd had last been grazing before following their tracks until she picked up their scent and could follow them from the safety of the trees again. Once she was sure she had entered the clearing her nose once more dropped to the ground so she could look at the tracks left by the herd properly. She was following a particular set that looked newer than the rest when she ran into something… Or rather, someone.

Milleara froze in place - even she could see that she had just run into another horse’s rump. She mumbled something that sounded like a terrified apology while she continued to stand there as if paralysed. She had both her eyes tightly shut as if to pretend she wasn’t there, and everything would magically disappear when she reopened them. It didn’t, and she could see a pale red coat of some young brumby. The temptation to turn and run was strong, but even she knew better than to try such a thing.

[Illu]

  They’d gone, errr... North? No. More North-North-Westish, really.

  Ergh, why hadn’t anyone ever taught him to track? This was hard.

  Nillam flicked his ears back irritably and put his nose back to the set of prints he assumed belonged to the lead stallion. He’d need to remember those. Without warning a small lizard was disrupted by the older colts snuffling and shot out from the grass right under his nostrils. Nillam jerked his head back and snorted in alarm. What the He—urgh. Stupid things.

  He was still busy grumping about the lizard when something large, warm and solid emerged from the trees and bumped into his hindquarters.

  Instinctively Nillam threw his head up and lurched forwards, eyes rolled back in shock. Argh! What the flipping love of Thowra’s ghost was that? Only another horse, by the looks of it. The colt slowed down, trotting into a tight circle and shaking his head as though to get his brain back in order.

  Yeesh. He was going to get a heart attack if the surprises kept coming. He was a prey animal for Thowra’s sake! He didn’t react well to being snuck up on.

  Argh. Okay. Relax. Nillam’s breathing started to return to normal as he took a proper look at his mystery ‘attacker’. It was a filly. Not particularly tall, but with a pretty face and dark grey coat, and... she was standing there with her eyes closed?

 ... Okay. Well, that explained why she’d run into him. You weren’t going to get very far when you were prancing around with your eyes shut. He, however, had no excuse. Lizard or not, he should have seen her coming.

  Fail, Nillam.

  Right. Game-face on. Hopefully he could look a bit less like he’d just been caught with his tail in a knot.

  Pricking his ears in order to look pleasantly interested as opposed to rude, Nillam stretched his neck forward to apprehensively reach his nose to hers. The horsey equivalent of a handshake to a stranger.

[Ehetere]

The pale red horse didn’t say anything, and she became more and more embarrassed by the minute, and if she could have slunk away with no further fuss she would have. But the likelihood that she would run into something else in her haste to escape was too high. She did not know whether she could suffer another embarrassment like that.

The horse moved, and Milleara almost jumped in surprise. It wasn’t until she felt its warm breath that she realised that it was offering its nose out to her. Hesitantly so she could bump heads, she sniffed at the other: a colt, which made her a little more anxious in this situation.

In an ideal world, she would have liked to peer at the nose in front of her and nose it all over so she could have a picture of it in her mind, but that wasn’t going to happen - she could never bring herself to even ask. Especially since it was some unknown colt.

The lack of proper conversation was worrying her now. Was she expected to say something? Was the colt waiting for her to speak first and she not realising it? She liked to hear noise, and the silence was almost deafening.

“Um… hello,” she finally said awkwardly, grasping for threads of conversation and coming up with nothing. What was she supposed to say? Sorry for running into your rump?

“Er… sorry for running into you. I didn’t… um… see you there…?”

Now the only question would be how long it took for the colt to consider her completely insane and leave her to fall off an unseen cliff somewhere.

[Illu]

  The grey filly didn’t seem to be very talkative either, but she at least reached out her nose to accept his friendly gesture.

  She looked nervous as well. Or, okay, understatement. Her every muscle was tense, ready to spring, ears alternating between pinned back and flicking around as though terrified but desperate to catch any rogue sound. And to top it off she was looking – no, staring – right at him. Or more-so a bit over his left shoulder, now that he was paying attention to which way her pupils were facing.

  In any case, it was making him nervous. What? What was it? Had she run here away from someone? Or from something? Might explain why she’d managed to crash into him so spectacularly. Should he be nervous too? She wasn’t running now, so perhaps that was a good sign. Still, Nillam shifted his feet, drifting backwards a little bit and checking over the filly’s shoulder to get a look at where she’d come from. Not that he was able to see much anyway – too many trees.

  Okay. No mad stallions running out trying to crush him. That was a good sign.

 ... In fact, nothing seemed to be wrong. Just to make sure, he glanced over quickly for injuries.

  Nope. Nadda.

  She wasn’t from the herd he’d just been investigating either. She smelt different to all the plethora of tracks left scattered and baked into the mud.

  Ow, brainache.

  Alright, mystery filly.

 ... Cool.

  The red colt found himself arching his crest happily. She was pretty, and no sense in wasting a good thing when it dropped out of the sky, and she may as well have for all the warning he’d received.

  “Er… sorry for running into you. I didn’t… um… see you there…?” she appologised, and Nillam replied with an amused sounding snort.

  The more he thought about it the funnier it seemed to get. After all, of all the things to walk into?

  And then a house-elf appeared.