A New Toy? [o]

[sooty]

It had been sometime since she had met and played with her friend. The small and petit gray mare was growing tired of her own company. She could run, jump, play and chase the critters of the high country but yourself got lonely and she was craving the company of other brumbies that did not find her odd for her high amounts of energy. The only problem was no matter what she did she always found herself on her own and far from other brumbies. Today was no different.

She had found a large river, now young Eerin loved water and she had started chasing it, chasing the current down the river that it. She had zoomed along the riverbank, her head low to the ground her eyes fixed on the swift flowing current, her thick mane and tail flying in the wind. The little gray mare was court up in her chase, forgetting everything else around her. She was very good at doing this.

She ran and she ran and she ran then... She tripped, she tumbled, she ended up on her side beside the river. With an embarrassed snort she shakes her head and looks around her hoping that no one saw her fall. That is when she sees it. See’s what she had tripped over. Her eyes go wide and she gets back up onto her hooves, quickly shakes the dust off of her and slowly approaches what had send her tumbling to the earth.

When she reaches it she lowers her head slowly and sniffs it. Then she lifts a foreleg and taps her hoof on it. As she does bits of it fall off and a black smoke comes up around her hoof. With a snort she jumps backwards. The smell that was winding up from it sent fear through her body but she wasn’t sure why.

She picks her foreleg up again and paws roughly at the ground, digging a hole before her before she leaps, more like pounces upon the bit of black chard wood that she had tripped over. It cracks under her weight as she lands on it and at the sound she fly’s to the side away from it. Then her rump bumps into something and she jumps forward.

Turning her head around she looks behind her and sees more of the black stuff some of it was big and some pocking up in the air. Her eyes go wide as she looks at it all then she forgets her fear and begins to run around it, kicking at bits of burnt wood. Rearing up and striking out at other bits. Snorting and nickering with each blow as she goes, thoroughly enjoying herself.

[Tiggs]

Following the Cascade was a dangerous thing to do, but the frosted chestnut colt hoped that the remains of the old hut would be a safe please to shelter. Other brumbies kept away from the place. There were no men there now, but their presence could still be felt, and it unnerved a lot of wild horses. Maka had visited a few times just to investigate. The burnt fence posts and rubble from the hut held many strange scents, and the colt was a curious one when he forgot his nervousness.

Trotting through the shallows so he would not leave a trail, the frosted colt stepped out of the water just downstream of the hut, approaching quietly. A noise stops him dead, and Maka threw up his roaned head, white-rimmed eyes giving him a more spooked look. There was another brumby nearby, and thought his instincts told him to run, he needed to see if it was his mother. He searched for her everywhere, but he had seen neither hide nor hair of his palomino dam since they were separated.

Carefully moving forward, he rounded the curve in the rover, and stopped a portion of blackened fence that still stood furthest from the hut. He could see across the flat meadow that there was just one loan horse – a grey mare – prancing around where the fences toppled and the remains of the hut spilled across the ground. The colt looked around for evidence of a stallion and finding none, he relaxed a little.

He should have left the mare in peace, but something drew him to her. Perhaps it was her dance, so light and playful. The grass was long and overgrown, yet she seemed to float through it, and the colt cast his gaze away in embarrassment when he realised he was staring. The day was beautifully mild for Autumn, and the slight breeze brought her scent to him. Double-checking there was no stallion, Maka steeled himself and rounded the fence, trotting awkwardly across the overgrown paddock toward the mare.

Tossing his head, sparse mane draping erratically over either side of his neck, the young colt nickered nervously. “H-hello. W-w-what are you d-doing?” He asked with a stutter, his tone meek and expecting a rebuke. It was quite obvious what she was doing – she was playing – but Maka did not often see grown mares play. He didn’t often see grown mares full stop. He was sure that a stallion would suddenly burst across the river and chase him away, but he had been without company for a long time, and the anxious colt could no more resist the chance to speak to a fellow brumby than she could resist tapping the charred wood and watching it crumble.