Extraordinary Girl [Piringa]

[Tiggs]

His perpetual mood was beginning to get on her nerves. She’d been willing to put up with a bit of adolescent grumpiness, but insults? No, she could not abide that. She mirrored his stamp, holding her head high and further out of range. “I would not want to tempt you,” she spat, “If you the last colt in the High Country.”

Her tail lifted, twitching angrily. The thin trunks kept her from swinging her rump in his direction, else she would have given him a good kick to show her just how much fawning this filly was doing in his presence. Forced face-to-face though by the trees, it was a more dangerous situation. He could lash out with his front legs, and her head was vulnerable. Conversely though, he was in the same situation, and he underestimated her.

“I think you confuse my coming here with me liking you.” She fairly hissed, stepping forward with her dark eyes set on his. They were dangerously close now, but before he could make the first move, she reared and with a loud squeal, used her folded knees lash out under the steely grey colt’s chin. As she came down and their chest collided, she nipped at his cheek, squealing and making a ruckus loud enough for Piringa to hear.

A senseless filly, was she? Distracting the colt with kicking and biting until a much stronger stallion got here was hardly a senseless plan. The colt might have more sparring practice, but she was older and stronger. The colt had a lot to learn about fillies if he thought all they did was fawn.

[Ehetere]

“And yet here you stand before me, when you are certain fillies are what I am looking for,” replied Lark snidely, refusing to admit that the insult stung a little. Of course any filly would choose that blasted brother of his over him – Piringa was the more handsome and charming. It was enough to make Lark sick to the stomach.

“I am not the one who is confused. It is you who came to seek me out when you have a perfectly capable stallion standing in that clearing yonder. It is not my fault you can’t make up your mind about what you want.”

His eyes remained locked on her’s; the amount of animosity passing between them could probably be felt for whole miles around. Unexpectedly, the filly reared with a squeal and he did not shy away in time and got a jarring knock right under the chin. Roaring in anger without thinking to be quiet, he moved to rear as well only to collide with the filly in the air. A sharp nip stung at his cheek, and he squealed angrily again, lunging to kick her off him.

The filly had become an angry storm of bites and kicks, which for the most part Lark could endure though he would regret it tomorrow when they all bruised to make his entire body more black and blue than it already was.

* * *

Piringa had settled enough to fall into a lazy doze, Kiata’s warmth combined with his own creating a cocoon of comfortable air as well as any summer evening. This was bliss. Was. Jiba’s shrill screams accompanied with the roars of a young stallion filled the air, and Piringa threw his head up, mane flying wildly about him. The clearing behind him was empty.

Heart filling with dread, he gave Kiata swift instructions to stay where she was before galloping like there was a man on his tail into the trees. He had gotten faster, much faster, since last year and as he ducked and dodged through the speed hindering bush the sounds of a squabble filled the air along with the angry snorts of Jiba and an unknown male.

Bursting in on the pair, he found his brown mare locked in a tussle with a dark grey colt whom he did not recognize. This did not matter now though, as he roared his defiant challenge to this mystery colt who by the looks of it wanted to take Jiba by force.

Barreling into the challenger, Piringa realized this colt was very young indeed, younger than he. Some upstart was not about to be pilfering mares from him. Kicking and biting seemed effective, but the dark grey was rather skilled at avoiding his attacks which was frustrating. But Piringa was bigger, heavier and stronger, and it was no mystery who was about to be given a real thrashing.

The dark grey seemed to realize this too, and ducked under one of Piringa’s blows before springing over a small bush with eerily familiar grace, catching Piringa’s side with a spiteful kick. Roaring again, Piringa whirled around to find the colt leaping with the certainty of a kangaroo into the bush after barreling past Jiba and offering her a nasty bite of her own on her rump.

Snorting angrily, Piringa stared after him, chest heaving. Already the colt’s dark coat was lost in the gloom of the surrounding trees, and Piringa did not trust him not to return for some unknown reason. The steel grey had come off as crafty and sinister, so he hustled up Jiba in a way he’d never seen the need to before. He liked to think his mares followed him by choice, but clearly Jiba liked to wander so he was putting his foot down.

[Tiggs]

Jiba took her own fair share of bites and kicks, and her neck and chest was marked with bloodied scars by the time Piringa came in like a bolt of lightning. She screamed after the grey colt, warning him off as Piringa drove him away. Her rump stung where the darker grey had bit her, and she tossed her head and held it proudly. Piringa had come as she expected. That would teach the darker colt to underestimate her. She might not have the power herself to beat him, but she knew where to find it.

Piringa came back to her then, and she would have thanked him but he continued to hustle her up the hill. She stomped a rear hoof, lashed her dark tail and trotted on faster. Well if that was the thanks she got for alerting him to a potential threat, she wouldn’t be making the same mistake again.


Kiata watched with sleepy horror as Piringa dashed off down the hill, and she stood frozen awaiting his return. The noise for squeals and bellows made her flinch, but soon she saw the pale shapre of Piringa climbing the hill with his mare in the evening gloom and she gave a relieved nicker. She trotted to him and nosed his neck.

She could sense his anger, and she nickered to calm him. She nosed and nuzzled him, lipping at his pale mane and resting against his flank. She couldn’t bear to see him frustrated, especially since they had just reunited. Not a hundred heartbeats together and he had already beaten off one stallion. She knew now that Piringa was the one she would follow. He would defend her, and keep her company. Together they would roam the High Country in search of adventure.


Jiba meanwhile used the distraction to drop to her knees a little distance away and roll. The bites on her neck and rump were still stinging, and she hoped the ground would cool them. She owed that colt a retaliation, but she doubted she would see him again after Piringa had driven him off. How wrong she would be.

[Ehetere]

~Spring~

The creeks were bubbling with fresh melt, and grass was beginning to sprout from the patches of damp earth. Flowers were blooming, filling the High Country with their heady scent. Spring had returned, and with it the small but humble herd of brumbies Piringa called his own.

Piringa was thankful the winter had not been a hard one when he returned to the familiar grazing spot with its eerie trees and delicious promised snow grass. He had traveled very low in the mountains, far further than he had the previous year but this time he had two fillies in his care and had wanted to be sure that there would be food enough for them all.

Unlike his previous winter, this had been far more bearable with distractions a plenty in the form of a certain ruddy chestnut mare. Kiata was far more energetic than Jiba, and Piringa had enjoyed many a day running headlong down an untouched icy slope with her at his side. Surprisingly, Jiba’s mood appeared to have improved some, though not a great deal. But Piringa was happy to accept progress was progress, and was thankful Jiba was not the jealous protective type, unlike his own mother.

After wandering off at the end of autumn the previous year, Piringa had watched Jiba like a hawk, always keeping her in plain sight. Suspicious that she might run away again, Jiba had shown no indication of wanting to leave throughout the winter, and there had been no further sign of that pesky grey colt.

Now that spring had returned, all these worries had all but been shaken from his head, and no longer concerned him. Piringa was once again confident he had impressed Jiba enough with getting rid of that colt quickly so she would not think of running off again. Which left Kiata and her slowly returning mysterious sandy coat to distract him even further.

In truth, all three horses’ coats were changing with the coming of spring. With the shedding of his winter coat, Piringa was beginning to take on an almost white coat flecked with dark hairs. The new season meant another change in Piringa – he was no longer a colt, but a young stallion. He had filled out his frame a little more, and more muscle rippled beneath his skin. He was by no means big or heavy, quite the opposite, but he certainly looked more magnificent.

* * *

With the return of spring, it meant the steel grey colt was now a two year old, not some gangly yearling. He was taller, stronger, swifter. And there was the increasing need to get himself a harem of fillies, despite his own opinions. Other colts would laugh and sneer at him for continuing to walk empty handed, or would call him crazy for refusing the company of a plain chestnut filly who approached him. None of them were of any real interest to him – they were all the same. Stupid.

The one filly who may have held some interest to him if it were not for her sharp tongue and sharp teeth still belonged to his ever-frustrating brother. Lark had kept an eye on the pale grey’s herd over winter, and somewhere in the middle had lost track of them after a storm had covered their tracks. Towards the end of spring he had rediscovered them however, and was now grazing in a thicket a little way away, convinced by their path they were coming to Stockwhip Hill to graze.

[Tiggs]

Spring was running through Kiata’s blood, invigorating her senses and giving her boundless energy. She was quite bored of grazing, so she cavorted over to Piringa and gave him a headbutt. Squealing, she wheeled and pranced away, light on his willowy legs. She bucked and danced and enticed her stallion to play. They would always race together, and now he snow was gone, the roan filly had a better advantage.

Kiata was growing out to be a fairly slender mare; her sides slim from all her running. Jiba however was constantly grazing, and she was bulking up after the winter harshness. Both mares’ coats were paling as their winter coat shed out, Kiata’s turning into pale sand and Jiba’s into a pale brown. Around the grulla’s neck and shoulders were darker cornspots, evidence of her tussle with an over-confident colt last autumn.

Jiba glanced over at the pair before returning to her grazing. She had long gotten used to the par’s exuberance, and was glad that Piringa had stopped trying to include her. He was polite, but she had no desire to waste the energy she was gathering from grazing.

Whenever she mused on Piringa’s personality, she found herself thinking back to the steel grey colt who had marked her coat. He had been cruel and vicious but practical. Something Jiba valued in a stallion. Niceiies were second to survival.

It was when the squeals and whinnies of Kiata and Piringa faded away to the other side of the hill that she caught a scent on the breeze. She lifted her head, curled her lip and sampled it. She could almost have laughed. It was the colt she had just been thinking about. She glanced around the area, wondering where he was hiding. Her ears and eyes settled on the treeline as if waiting expectantly, head held high and tail flagged proudly.

[Ehetere]

The sound of approaching hoof beats and an excited squeal barely prepared Piringa for Kiata’s exuberant head butt, but from that moment on she had his attention solely and completely. Piringa’s world was the white-flecked filly, her entrancing colour and her dancing, willowy legs. Chasing after her in his own dance, light-footed and swift in his new spring glory, the grey stallion pirouetted and spun, chasing and cantering and trotting and leaping. He felt like his heart might leap from his chest in sheer joy, the joy of spring and the joy of the filly before him. No other stallion could possibly be as happy as he in this moment.

He raced away, silver and grey tail flying like a banner behind him in pursuit of that sandy filly. She was lithe, swift, but he had been born to run; swift, lithe and quick – enough to give the wind itself a run for its money. There was no way he was going to let the filly beat him, not this time. Stretching his legs out further, he willed them faster and faster, eating up the earth beneath him.

* * *

The sounds of excited squeals caught his attention, moving quickly too and he wandered towards the tree line to see if his brother was moving off. No, he was just cavorting around with a sandy coloured filly who bore a striking resemblance to the ruddy brown one from autumn – logically the same mare, just without her winter coat. The ruckus the two were creating was quite loud indeed – they’d be lucky if some bigger, stronger stallion wasn’t in the area. He’d certainly know where they were.

The pale grey and his playmate raced up the slope, further away from the same brown filly he’d been confronted with last spring he was sure, even though now she was much wider and also had a pale tint to her coat. Briefly noting how his brother had matured over the winter with the merest hint of concern, he waited till the pair of cantering noisy horses were out of sight before trotting cockily from the trees.

His steel grey coat, barely showing a few dapples, glinted shiny and new in the spring sunlight. The young colt had also matured over winter, the most dramatic change being his height. He was less muscled than his brother now, but certainly almost as tall. There was the promise about his lithe form of strength that would one day be far greater than his smaller brother’s, and it was clear he would outgrow him. But he was still a colt, and a less experienced one at that and he’d learnt his lesson before. He’d pick his fights more carefully from now on, and Piringa looked grudgingly mature and handsome this spring, swiftness written in every line of his body.

Arching his neck and launching into a canter, he charged right at the dark brown and cream mare who was grazing so peacefully, before pulling up sharply on his haunches and skidding to a halt. Finally his mane and tail had grown out of their annoying in-between stage and now flowed around him like his brother’s did, though his tail perhaps less luxurious. Lark would never be as handsome as his brother, though he would never care to admit it. He would simply rather focus on the more immediate and practical concerns, which were focused around whether he could stand up to him in a fight.

His head was thrown up, and there it remained, if only to accentuate his height. He gave her a look as if daring her to call for help. If she did, she would no longer be of any concern to him. A scared filly who relied on her stallion too heavily was of no interest to him.

[Tiggs]

Out he came, a more mature version of the colt she had tussled with before the winter. He had grown, filled out into his gangly legs. His mane and tail flowed properly now and suitied his more adult build. He still have some growing to do, though, but as he drew close, she could see he was almost Piringa’s height already.

She felt a flush of anxiety. She was confronted by a young stallion who on their last meeting had no qualms about fighting back. Piringa was quite a distance away now, so she had to be careful not to provoke him. Jiba throw up her dark hear, eyes rolling. She snorted a warning, lifting a foreleg in a clear indication that she would kick if he came closer.

“What are you doing?” She hissed. “Piringa is close, he will only beat you again if you do not leave.” Of course, Jiba could call Piringa and send him fleeing but there was a small part of her that wanted to fend for herself. She didn’t need Piringa to rid herself of a pesky colt.

She lashed her black tail and huffed. “You don’t scare me, colt. Be on your way, lest I call my stallion.” She bared her teeth and flattened her ears. Her tail rose, lashing from side to side. She could feel her heart begin to pick up pace, and the warmth of a cautious fear rise in her gut. He could so easily hurt her, and she was taking a chance that he would not.

[Ehetere]

The mare looked startled, even scared at his appearance. This was finally the reaction Lark was aiming for, it was about time he was beginning to appear imposing. Good, this was progress. He quite liked his new spring coat too, and perhaps he would grow into a more powerful, more successful, more feared, more respected and certainly more handsome version of the Brolga. His coat at least, was well on the way.

Just as last year, she looked equally as thrilled to see him – lifting a leg in warning – but this deterred Lark little. She may have held her own last year, but he was growing in strength with each passing day, and he would not be denied his new strength this time.

Typically, Lark snorted and tossed his head at the mention of his brother, arrogance written all over him. “Piringa? He is a fool – once again he has left one of his mares… all alone.” His eyes had acquired a sly glint, and there was a none too friendly tone to his voice that had been inspired by her slightly fearful reaction to something. He chose to assume it was him, of course.

Stepping forward deliberately and with purpose, he lowered his head threateningly, lunging forward a little to herd her back. He scoffed at the mention of his easily distracted brother, moving again to block any of the filly’s escape routes up the hill.

“Why don’t you call him then? Call my dear lovestruck brother down here to protect you,” there was a darkly teasing tone to his voice, almost like laughter at some evil humor. “I’m not going anywhere Filly, and neither are you.”

[Tiggs]

Well she could hardly defend Piringa for leaving her. He was an idiot for letting her out of his sight, especially in this season. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, and she realised since last year he had matured in other ways too. This was spring, after all, and a filly on her own was likely to be the attention of any passing male.

She had been right about the family resemblance, then. They were brothers, and it was even more obvious now as the younger male had begun to lighten, shadows of dapples mottling his steely coat. A quite handsome effect if his expression wasn’t so ugly.

Jiba back up as he approached, snaking her head. He was trying to herd her. She was being stolen. The roan squealed but not loud enough to call attention and stamped her hoof. He kept advancing, and she held her ground until her hide prickled with his closeness. She turned away and tried to trot up the hill but he was there, blocking her way.

She snorted, lashing her tail and trotting down the hill instead. She refused to call Piringa and give into the colt’s taunts. She could fend for herself, and she would prove it. She waited until they were both trotting down the hill and when she reached a secure place, she abruptly halted and bucked, aiming flint hooves at his face.

[Ehetere]

The filly continued to retreat, trying to dodge around him. But Lark was there, shadowing her every move like a dog herding cattle. The filly’s failure and frustration only spurred him on more, enjoying how powerful it made him feel far too much.

How his silly brother would be furious to know he had once again come to bother his mare. And really, if he so wished, Lark suspected he could spirit her away right then and there. But still, despite his want for fillies, did not want them bogging him down, and when foals came they would be even slower. A waste of precious time and infinitely more difficult to hide.

“Why aren’t you calling him Princess?” taunted Lark, confidence boosted from last year. “Would you rather stay here with me?” The filly did not seem to appreciate his comments much offering a swift kick in reply, which he ducked away from and gave her a short sharp nip on the flank again as punishment.

“Now now, no need to be so vicious.” His attention was diverted from the filly by the sounds of Piringa and his sandy filly returning, or at least getting dangerously close again. Flicking his ears, Lark knew he’d need to leave now. He would not win a fight against his brother, not yet.

Shuffling the pale brown filly in the direction of the trees a little more for show, he swung around her, passing dangerously close to her rump and within striking distance. Then he was gone again, leaving nothing but a promise and a teasing nip on her shoulder. He would be back, she could be certain of that.