We Were The Herd The World Was Us
Upon coarse dirt by the bank of the stream, I lay and dreamed that I was unborn, undone, and drifting under the bright blue sky, grass rustling and wind soughing along the plains, soft haze over the distant mountains. Then everything went dark, and I heard the screeches of lanky forms as they swung from branches and dropped from the trees, and they closed in around me to block my escape and howled in triumph and smiled at me with sharp white teeth. They jumped onto my back, roped me and bound me and I felt it, the blood-bitter taste of the metal stick in your mouth, resting at the gap in your teeth and sucking the heat from your tongue, and the choking yank of the foul smelling reins as they pull the corners of your mouth sharply up and back. The tug that makes you look.
I awaken with a snort and scrabble at the air, my hooves kicking divots when they strike the dirt. I smell dust and moist stream water, reeds and muck, a hint of remote fox scent. My ears cock and swivel, hearing no hint of danger, but I am full of a thing like fear as traces of my dream sink deeper into my mind.
I shake my head and step to the stream, gazing down at the rippled image of my roan coat and the white streak like a diamond on my forehead. I drink deeply, listening into my body and feeling the echoes of a panic I cannot name and from which I cannot flee. I shiver and take refuge in what is normal; earth under my hooves, damp streambank, smooth pebbles cool and refreshing to walk upon, water dripping from my whiskers as I lift my head.
I turn to the path of packed dirt that ran by the stream. I close my eyes and I feel the breeze in my face and the drumming of hooves as I run with my herd, the open sky and warm sun on our sweating coats as the land drops away behind us and I open my eyes again to just the path, with a copse of elms ahead and after that in the distance the… the memory flashes in me but the meaning won’t come. I bare my teeth and breathe deep; there is no fear smell. It is well-travelled, safe, imprinted by hoofmarks of calm gait. I do not remember whence I came and have nowhere else to go; I start down the path.
Some of the prints below me look odd; I smell a sharp odor and the ringing noises, the pounding of the mallets as they strike your upturned hooves, driving the metal shoes onto your feet with sharp spikes, the shoes that separate you from the earth and I almost panic again. The rest of the air smells of sweet grass, chicory and marjoram, the land is rich with food smells and there is no threat, just the thing ahead to which I am drawn. I fall into the rhythm of my gait, and close my eyes again to recall the clean air through the rustling grasses and the peace of the herd about me as we graze and so I drift into and out of my dream as I walk.
The path crosses the stream as I walk, and there is a… bridge over it. Lengths of wood stripped of bark, laid across the water. A tree sliced to pieces to be walked on. I hear the hollow sound as I plod across it and approach the… town. I have the meaning now and my ears flatten and I shy back. It is a place where we gnaw dried alfalfa instead of biting and tearing the living grass, lick at coppery slimy water instead of gulping from cool streams, run forever in circles in prisons made of wood and wire...
The dream memories burn through me and I am so close to fleeing in terror, but I can see others now, a herd, and they are together and they smell safe and I remember the warmth at my flanks so I trot forward again.
As I approach them from downwind, they do not notice me. They make noises at each other, intricate and cadent, that wash over my ears without touching me, but they are like the sounds of the jabbing of spurs at my sides and carcass skin wrapped over my back and the tug that pulls my mouth and makes me look where demons drive me so I stop still and stare at them, trembling.
They are colored like flowers in a field, and they have designs on their flanks, like the brand from the glowing metal searing your flesh and horrible stink of burnt hair and hide and I am frozen to the spot, the nightmare panic thrumming in my heart. They are not running together or grazing or mating, they stand in groups of twos or threes and chatter together, waving their forelimbs about, then throw their heads back and bray at the sky. I stare at them, trying to understand. We were shaking the land as we ran in waves through the long brown grass and leaving our foes behind and exulting in the surge, flowing over the plains as strong and steady as a river... Before we were enslaved, bred to servitude, remade to be mounted. What has been done to them?
They push shiny bits of metal at each other and take tiny bits of food. They are making things that should grow. I hear a horribly familiar ringing noise, one of them has her hoof turned up as another wields a hammer in his mouth, striking her foot. They are— Oh, No, No. My head spins and my stomach squirms in knots, I am sick with despair, my ears turn back, I whinny and flee—
But they finally see me and close in around me to block my escape and babble in glee and smile at me with bright white teeth.
I feel the corners of my mouth jerk sharply up and back.
