I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail yes I would, if I could, I surely would, I'd rather be a hammer than a nail yes I would, if I only could, I surely would. Away, I'd rather sail away like a swan that's here and gone. A man gets tied up to the ground, he gives the world its saddest sound, its saddest sound
A
s a young lieutenant, I stood on a beach just like this one and stared at the carnage of my first battle. I had heard of tertiary care at the Academy; they had taught it as one teaches science, or mathematics, or a simple principle of astrology. The most severely wounded, those that could not be saved without extraordinary measures, were left where they lay as the salvageable were dragged to medical tents and cared for. Medical interns ran from body to body, tying ribbons to their horns. Black meant dead.
Yellow meant severe, but could be saved with care.
Blue meant they needed immediate attention, but they would survive. They were severely injured, but savable.
Green meant they needed care, but could wait for.
Red meant they were dying. They might be saved, if there were time and limitless resources. But they were dying, and there was never enough time to save the severely injured and the dying. The lost causes. In the academy, we joked that a red ribbon meant a gold star or Medal of Honor. We joked a red ribbon would immortalize us.
I remembering, standing on that beach just like this one, the way it felt as if I stood on the edge of a vast cliff; because the battlefield had not been littered with strangers, but with friends and brothers in arms. The man dying at my feet, a red ribbon tied to his horn, had been my classmate for the last four years. We had shared stories and laughter and sparred on the practice field.
When I raised my eyes from his gasping body—because he was simply that, a body, a body barely living—it was to stare at a field of bodies, ribbons blowing from their horns. Black, yellow, blue, green, red—they caught the light as it flit through the clouds, and snapped sharply in the wind.
Now I do not even remember his name.
Now, the beach before me stretches emptily away.
The black sand must have belonged to some volcanic eruption when Tempus was a child. The water licks starkly against the surface; bright blue, beneath a brighter blue sky. The black absorbs. The black seems lightless and I walk the line between shore and sand, where the surf chases up the line of beach to strike cooly against my hooves. Clear, and sharp, and bright—the ambience of the day seems the epitome of a knife or other blade. The air, so crisp to breathe, it stings.
I should feel alive, here. I should feel alive. And I do, with a prickling of awareness; an involuntary wiring between myself and my surroundings. This has become perpetual. A constant state of heightened awareness as I, a predator, listen for prey or for threat or for both. The birds overhead careen away when they spot my roving shadow; and the crabs scurry into the water. I am not here to hunt, and yet—
I want to.
I want to, and I hate myself for the wanting.
I raise my face toward that too-bright sun, and close my eyes. I inhale the salt and brine and think how once, as a young man, I would have found it beautiful. The sun never shone in Oresziah as it does here. But the moment of appreciation, the moment where I decide, is inconsequential and brief.
Perhaps I should have spent more time.
But the scent is in the air, and I follow it; the meandering walk becomes a trot, and I follow the sharp curve of the beach into a quieter cove. Here, the water seems serene. The ocean rushes in at the mouth but turns still and quiet through the maze of jagged rocks. Before me, their weaves a trail of prints in the sand.
My father taught me, as a boy, that a wolf walks in a singular line; the hind leg follows the foreleg, and so their pads step only where they have already stepped. It makes for quieter walking. The same for lions. The same for most predators.
An anatomical impossibility for an equine, but not for us. Not for the lithe, the fluid; the Changed. Not for those less flesh and more water. Not for those who are halfway to animal already. Not for he and I.
I find him in the quiet, shaded cove. The far side of the inlet is hidden by redwoods so steep we are cast into shadow. The sea seems subdued. The sea seems to hold her breath.
“And how,” I ask, quietly. “Is Boudika?”
