He could not linger forever by Florentine’s side, telling her stories and praying (to what gods? To what ghosts?) for her to remember him. Lysander did the best he could, as the rains fell and fell and the waters rose and the golden mare’s wounds knitted but her memories did not.
And so, one afternoon as she slept and the rain faded to only the patter of fingers on the roof instead of fists, the stallion waded through the swamp and out into the muddy fields.
Even in the rift he’d seen nothing like this chaos, and it was impossible not to wonder if it was born of gods or nature. By the time he reached the gathered crowd he was indistinguishable from most of the other horses, dark with mud and soaked to his knees. But all his discomfort was forgotten as he took in the scene at the bottom of the slope – a crowd, a cave, a monster.
With a slow inhale, he approaches all three. It is not hard to find the monster’s companion, tall enough the mud and muck hardly reached her barrel, her gaze sharp enough to cut. For a moment he looked between the two of them, and then at the narrow mouth of the tunnel.
“I can understand wanting to take her with you, but I don’t think she’d fit,” he says wrly, glancing back over his shoulder at the enormous beast. It lingers only a moment before flicking back to the equally-towering mare, and the antlered stallion lifts a brow. “To be honest, I’m not sure you would either.”
Indeed, the tunnel would be a tight fit even for him, had he any intention of going – it was a narrow darkness, quickly fading to black in the bleak afternoon light. In the scant moments the crowd is quiet enough, Lysander thinks he can hear something within – the sound of feet, the whisper of paws on soil and stone.
But such silent moments are fleeting in this kind of crowd, and eventually the stallion steps away from the entrance and the appaloosa mare both, watching the latter’s face as it flickered in the torchlight. “But you two don’t look like a pair that listens much to the word no. You might be able to widen it – if you don't collapse the whole field on yourselves first.”
If that was their intent, then it would be his to return to the hospital and the flooded swamp before they found out just how much they didn’t fit - but Lysander could feel that familiar dark interest, a curiosity both for what lay (and walked) within the tunnel, and just what this pair planned to do about it.
oh, we'll brace for it
and conquer everything
@Jaxis
