Prologue

Sometimes we wonder if our lives could ever be worse. If this is as bad as it could get. That's what I thought until last September.

I lived in the herd of Otaku, in Eastern Greenland. I was only 13 months old at the time, and very fiesty. My mum, formally known as Gypsy, was watching me carefully at that yearling stage. My father was known as Lakota, he was a tall stallion, with a lot of power. He had overtaken every stallion and bachelor in all of Eastern Greenland. In his 16 years of life, he had earned every mare in the area. His heard consisted of 24 mares, 13 of them pregnant, and ready to pop.

By December, when the living was harsh, Lakota knew he would have to give up some of his mares to live on their own with the roaming bachelor stallions, whose hands had been swept clean of their mares many years earlier. By March, the herd was down to 13 mares. The ones that had been pregnant, and at that time, nursing. I was 18 months old by then, and I had grown to be very independent. My mum had weaned me, but I was still to young to be sent off to start my own family.

As time went one, I became very close with my father, and we became inseperable. He taught me everything there was to know about everything.

I was nearly 3 years old when my father pushed me away. I had tried courting one his mares, which was something I could not control. I was definatly ready for my own herd.

I didn't want to leave, it didn't feel right. I wanted to live on with my father and mother forever. But my father pushed me away as if he had never known me. I was regretted by my own father. Life was hard, and I hugged Lakota's herd for protection. I had never felt worse in my life. Until it happened. Until all of Greenland's herds were swept away..




Chapter 1

September was always one of my favorite monthes. By then the summer heat was usually fading away, and the weather was always promising. I was still a straggler, lurking in the shadows after Lakota's herd. By that point in time, I had actually tried various times to steal mares from other herds, but my attempts failed each time. I was almost 5 years old. It had been about 2 years since I has been left on my own. I was embarressed by the fact that I was still alone, and I had been staying close by my family. I had entered a state of depression, and I couldn't find the strength to search for my independent, strong heart that lay hidden inside of me.

It was late September, I was napping inside the forest while my father's herd garzed contentedly, when I heard a sudden whinny of distress from one of the mares. I awoke abruptly, and imediatly saw the danger. The was something large in the air, with propellers on top that obviously pushed the large object along. It was deathly loud, and on the inside was none other than one of the dreaded humans I had only heard rumors of. Suddenly, a large bay mare emerged from the hills right below the loud object with the human. I had never seen this mare before, but she had a trusting look in her eyes. She looked like she knew where she was going, so I followed her. I wasn't the only one following her either, pretty soon, nearly all of Greenland's herds were galloping behind her as well.

It felt like a run for my life. We ran for hours with the human buzzing above us in his flying object the whole way. I pushed my way up front near the gorgeus bay mare, tired of the overwhelming amount of horses pushing into my sides, trying to speed up in fear of the human. Finally, I was side by side with the beautiful bay. Surprisingly, I didn't sense a bit of fear coming from her, nor did she smell of wild horse. I looked over into her eyes, and noticed a decieving look in her soft expression; this mare wasn't protecting us, she was doing something against us. I was eager to find out where exactly she was taking us. Eventually I relaxed into the beat of my hooves, and galloped mindlessly along.

Night was coming, the sun had began to set and we were still running along. The group of horses was far smaller, for many mares had stopped because their foals couldn't endure the long run. By the time we reached our destinantion, there was probably only 30 out of 80 horses left. We were galloping straight into something like a sort of pen. I wanted to stop, but the mare had us under her control somehow, and we galloped stupidly into the large pen. Before I knew it, we were locked inside.

For the next few days I lived with piercing screams of terror and agony of the horses around me. I had calmed down because I was smart enough to know that fear only causes more and more fear until you completly lose to a point where you can't calm down. Although the pen slowly became quieter, as horses were taken away one-by-one each day. Eventually it was only me, my mother, father, and a couple other mares and stallions. The same tall man that had been taking the horses away each day came over again to the pen, but this time with someone else too.

"I say we keep that large stud and that brown an' white mare. They'll be good for breedin' rodeo horses, they both have boasting personalities and strong builds." A man said. I of course, didn't understand a word her said, but all I knew was that pretty soon the last of the mares and sallions were led away except for me, my father, and mother. I noticed that the man stopped coming to take us away until a couple days later.

"That smaller one'll be off to Texas tomorrow. The other two are going 90 miles west to breed at the ranch center." the man decided.

I could sense that I was involoved in whatever the man had said, and my thoughts were confirmed the next morning when he came for his usual visit...

Chapter 2

I relaxed patiently in my corral, waiting eagerly for the breakfast that would fill my empty stomach. I glanced up hopefully as my father bounced around excitedly when he saw the man coming over. My hopes fell as soon as I noticed that the man was only walking with the pretty mare that had decieved me and all of Greenland's horses. As she neared, I felt hot anger swell up inside of me, until she glanced gently at me with eyes you could never hate.

"Soraya'll keep you good company on the train ride through most of Canada. After that, you're on your own, buddy." The man said. I could once again sense he was talking about me, but I was too distracted to pay much attention, for the mare had been prancing back and forth gracefully, as if she was eager to get going. Then the man opened another gate with a passageway to a large, green pasture. I quickly galloped through the passage, excited for a chance to stretch my stiff legs. I turned around and noticed the mare moving swifly beside me. I picked up the pace just for fun, to only find that the mare had caught up again quickly. She looked at me playfully, then she picked up the pace dramatically. Eagerly, I follwed close behind, picking up speed until I was well ahead of her. We continued on like this until a tall gate blocked us from going any farther.

The rest of the day was amazing. Soraya (which I had learned was her name) and I fooled around all day straight until the sun began to set. We trotted over to a large apple tree and layed down. As I lay there, I suddenly noticed a large, bright blue Blue Jay land gracefully on a tree branch. He looked at me with trust, and with a look so serious, you wouldn't believe he was a bird.

Surprisingly, he could talk, and I could understand him. "You, my friend, have many great things ahead for you. There will be bad, but bad is always followed by good. Never give up, for no matter what, it will all be worth it in the end." The bird said wisely. He then dropped one of his feathers, it swyed peacefully to the ground. Before I knew it, the great bird had left.

Soraya picked up the feather and a nearby rope. She slipped the rope around my hock and tied the feather to it with her teeth. I looked lovingly at her, and noticed for the first time, that she herself had a brown and white feather in her gorgeus mane. It was beautiful, and I knew that she had had a bird like the Blue Jay come to her. That was obviously why she hadn't looked surprised by the Blue Jay. We rested as long as we could, until the man came back, this time with 2 halters in his hands. My time to leave Greenland had come.. but I was leaving with my first true love...

Characters


Bluejay and Soraya

-- Edited by _DF1 at 17:44, 2007-10-28

-- Edited by _DF1 at 16:29, 2007-11-19