Know Your Enemy [Willunga/Open]

[Tiggs]

OOC: Late thread! Set at the end of summer for Tally to meet Willunga before the end of the breeding season!

The night was quiet and cool as Talgarno picked his way up a well-worn track. His nerves were all on edge at the pungent smell of man. The trail he followed was one of theirs, and every step was hesitant and slow. The stallion was ready to bolt at the first sight of man, but it was toward their hut that he wandered. He put his feet in the distinct shape of the shod horses’, dark nostrils flaring and sweat already dampening his coat.

He wasn’t sure why he entertained the burning curiosity that brought him here, but ever since he had met that bay mare here the day after the fire, he had wanted to see the hut again. In the dead of night, he hoped that all the men would be in their burrow and he could see the hut unseen. He was close now, and the sound of their stock was clear to his wild ears. Horses and cattle, clucking ground birds and whining dogs. So many scents bombarded him; it was completely different to last time when all he could smell was smoke.

Reaching the abrupt tree line, Talgarno stopped and mustered the courage to look out. His coat was dark but for his white legs and queer shoulder splash, so he kept to the shadow of the trees lest the white marks make him stand out. He could see the dark shapes of stock horses and cattle in their pastures now, and the hut beyond them. The bay stallion would not come any closer than this – he was not stupid – it was just that his insatiable curiosity would not him leave this place be.

He had not told his mares of this strange obsession, he was not proud of it himself and he knew the danger he could be putting himself in just coming here when he knew man were present. He had left his mares sleeping peacefully at the far end of the Gap, sure that they would be fine for the short time he was away. He did not intend to be here long.

Just that niggling feeling. The bay mare Willunga and her voice of wisdom would not stop echoing in his mind. Could she be right? Could man not be as bad as they seemed? Talgarno wanted to see for himself.

[Corowa]

The bay brumby mare stood beneath a huge white sally gum. She was half-asleep, when one of the stockhorses in the yard started to move restlessly about. Willunga awoke at once. The mare knew there must be brumbies about, and she strained to pick out any sign of movement in a scrap of bush only a few hundred yards from the hut.

Yet there was only silence, and Willunga thought it possible maybe something else had disturbed the young stockhorse. But just then, there was a flash of white visible only briefly, through the rough stringybark branches and fallen timber. Willunga stood completely still. It seemed impossible that he would have dared come back here. She shook all over. Almost without thought, the mare headed towards the spot where she had last seen that single flash of white.

Talgarno. She called gently to him, filled with fear that he would be captured by the men if any of the stockhorses should neigh. She stepped out of the last patch of cover, illuminated by the faint moonlight that streamed through the surrounding bush. Willunga’s nostrils wrinkled at his familiar scent. She wondered suddenly, if it was her that Talgarno sought in the darkness of night, or if it had been for some other reason the stallion had come.

[Tiggs]

The hut was almost disappointingly quiet. The stock horses in the yard barely twitched an ear, and the lowing cattle didn’t even notice him. Could these tame creatures really have senses so dull? Before he could ponder it any further, a moving shape caught his attention. A horse, not restrained by fence or rope, came swiftly over to him. He shrank quickly back into the bush, hoping that the groundcover would hide him.

Her voice came to him then, and Talgarno saw that the shape was Willunga, the very mare that was the reason for his being here. With quietest of greetings, he ushered her into the cover beside him. “Willunga, you are free,” he said fondly, reaching his dark nose out to hers. It struck him that this meeting was vastly different than the last. He was much stronger, his limp healed and his body was curved with good summer grazing. There was still a tension in the inherent danger of having man so close, but it was a simple concern, not like the terror of the fire that had plagued them before.

Her scent seemed richer now that it was not smothered by smoke and ash, and the stallion breathed it in deep as she neared. The last he had seen of her, she was leading a man away from him in a merry chase. She could have been captured, yet she chose to help him when he was lame, and the stallion was forever grateful. He was overwhelmed to see that she was still free, and he had to stop himself from calling out with a larger more exuberant greeting. He had met this mare only once before, and so briefly, but what she had done for him was simply unforgettable.

[Corowa]

It was strange, that Talgarno had been drawn to this place so feared by all the wild bush horses. Stranger still, that the big brown and white stallion had been so worried about her safety. After all, she was not one of his herd. The old bay mare knew she was no prize, yet still Talgarno had sought her out. Willunga was confused by the stallion’s gentleness toward her. She wondered what it was that had called him here in the dead of night.

“I did not live with man for so many years not to know how to avoid capture by him,” she replied with an indignant snort. While there did not seem to be any great danger, it had been foolish of Talgarno to come here. The darkened slab-and-shingle hut stood in the grassy clearing, outlined by a faint shaft of moonlight. In the nearby yards, one shadowy horse moved restlessly about, having smelt the two brumbies.

“What is it that has brought you here?” Willunga asked suddenly. Though she had missed Talgarno, she had not expected to see the stallion again. He must have gathered a herd by now, for even in the near-darkness of the night the mare could see no sign of lameness. She had indeed felt a pang of longing when she had first seen him. Still, something held Willunga back. It was with loathing that she thought of Thalera and his cruelty. Never, would the mare let herself be hurt by any other stallion.

[Tiggs]

The stallion had the good grace to look chagrined at her response, “I apologise, I didn’t mean to infer that I believed you would be caught – it is just relieving to see that you have not,” he explained, retracting his muzzle with a coy arch to his neck. Talgarno glanced warily out at the hut, but Willunga was not worried, and of course she had more experience with men than he.

“To be honest, I am not quite sure what has brought me here,” he murmured, keeping his voice low, “Since our first meeting...” The stallion shook his head, it was a silly notion, “I couldn’t seem to put this place out of my head. I hoped I might see what the men were doing, and perhaps find out if your bravery got you noosed,” he huffed jovially, “I am pleased to find that my foalish worries were unfounded,” the bay stallion said, meeting the mare’s gaze as solidly as one could in the darkness.

“It was something that you said, I think, that has me indulging my curiosity. The men, is there really more to them?” He looked a little awkward for asking; a grown stallion, asking simple questions, “Would you tell me about them, from your perspective?” A faint noise from the hut put the stallion on edge, “Though perhaps not here – is there a place nearby we could stop for the night?” He was almost quivering with the need to know more, though he had to admit, spending the time with Willunga was just as enchanting an idea. That wisdom, that knowledge, her calm serenity; Talgarno loved a mare with sense, and Willunga had plenty of that.

[Corowa]

Willunga was surprised by the stallion’s strong interest. It was true, most wild horses were deeply curious about the stockmen and bushwalkers who came to the mountains. Yet, their curiosity was always tinged by the horror of capture, and it was this that kept them far away from man. It was only during the wild, rough dash of the big brumby drives, the mare could perhaps, understand a little of their terror.

Although he was very eager, Talgarno was definitely nervous. Willunga smelt the big stallion’s sweat, saw the way he watched the hut with a look of worry in his gentle brown eyes. The mare longed to comfort him. She had never had a reason to be afraid of man. Surely, she could find some way to convince this wild stallion that he had nothing to fear here. Did Talgarno believe that even now, in the deepest depth of night, those stockmen watched and waited? Willunga snorted. Could he have been so foolish as that? The three stockmen had been on horseback long before the first crack of sunlight. It would take more than a restless stockhorse to rouse them from their sleep.

Even though she was loath to leave that beloved slab-and-shingle hut behind, Willunga knew how greatly this place frightened Talgarno. The mare reached over and gently pinched the skin of his neck between her teeth. “There is a line of bush, not that far from here, but sheltered from view by a steep crest of rock,” she told the stallion. “We can speak there if you wish Talgarno, for I think there is much you would like to know.”

There was not much light to show the way, but Willunga had passed along this lightly-cut track many times before. Now in the near blackness of night, she went quickly and quietly, constantly aware of Talgarno as he followed close behind. All of a sudden, the track dropped sharply down over a precipitous headwall of rock and scrub. The branches of a massive snowgum closed over the heads of the two brumbies, and Willunga stopped abruptly in her tracks. “This is the place,” the mare said. “No man or horse should find us here."

[Tiggs]

It had been a long while since he followed another brumby without knowing the destination. It was comforting, of sorts, to know that he could put his trust in another. The path was difficult in the dark, so he kept close to the mare, his nose often resting on her flank or rump so he could better sense where she was going. They did not have to travel too far, but with every step Talgarno could feel the oppressive presence of man fade away.

Willunga stopped suddenly, and Talrgano propped to a halt beside her. The snowgum’s trailing branches snagged at his mane, and he lowered his head to avoid it. The spot was chosen well, and the stallion nuzzled the mare thankfully. She must have travelled this area well, and he wondered just how much time she spent shadowing the men. She was not caught, yet her fascination with men kept her close to them. How?

Nosing the shorter mare, Talgarno fussed with her forelock and ears a moment before he came back to the point of them being there, “Before we parted last, what did you mean when you said I could not know what you had lost? How could gaining your freedom be losing something?” The question was not disparaging, just curious. She had once been a tame horse, a prisoner of man, yet she did not hate them for it. What was it about men that kept her coming back?

What was it about men that kept him coming back?

[Corowa]

Willunga took a moment to enjoy the stallion’s gentle attention. The darkness pooled in this sheltered pocket of timber, and the mare saw no more than the splash of white that marked his near shoulder. She smelt him though; felt him quite close beside her. Willunga knew that Talgarno was gripped by some great urgency. Man had provoked some profound curiosity within the stallion, and the mare was not completely sure she could sate it.

“It is hard to explain, when one has known only freedom,” Willunga told him. The old bay mare knew she would forever long for the life that had been lost to her. Yet, Willunga felt certain that though she might seek until the end of her days, she would never find that which she so longed for. Everything seemed to have happened so long ago now that sometimes the mare wondered if she had not imagined it all.

“Not all men are cruel just as not all men are kind.” Willunga went on more hesitantly now. “My master was as close to me, as a foal is to its dam. I would have done anything he asked of me. It is a different freedom to what a brumby knows. But it was as if the two of us were one mind, one body.” Perhaps, it sounded foolish to this stallion who knew nothing of man or his ways. Still, not even Willunga understood what it was she had known. How could Talgarno, no more than a wild horse, be expected to?