A Terror in My Eye

[Texas]

and I discovered that my castles stand

upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

He’s halfway to sleep when he hears the sound. Immediately alert, the bay stallion looks up but sees nothing, only undulating waves of golden summer-end grass. Still, he is sure he’d heard something, and decides to leave the shelter of his aspen copse to investigate.

Texas moves in the direction of the sound, his grown gaze searching at eye level. So when he stumbles on a mare laying in the grass he shies away for a brief moment before recognizing her as not a threat. It’s a mare that he’s never seen before, but for a moment her roan coloring reminds him of Eld. She’d looked nearly as bad as this mare when she’d arrived in the Falls, and so while he is tempted to leave her, he decides instead to stay.

The coppery smell of blood is off-putting, even to a General, but he lowers his black nose and nudges her gently on the shoulder. “Hey,” he says, tapping her side with one dark hoof, “Hey, wake up.” She can’t die here; the Meadow would smell terrible for months, and her body would attract predators. Best wake her up and find out what the matter is.

texas