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, and [i]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 up and back. The tug that makes you [b]look.[/b][/i]

I awaken with a snort and scrabble at the air, my hooves kicking divots when they strike the dirt. I smell dust and moist streamwater, reeds and muck, a hint of remote foxscent. 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 turn to the path of packed dirt that ran by the stream. I close my eyes and [i]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] I open my eyes again to just the path, with a copse of elms ahead and after that the… the word won’t come. I bare my teeth and breathe deep; there is no fearsmell. 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 [i]the ringing noises, the pounding of the mallets as they strike your upturned hooves, driving the metal rings onto your feet with sharp spikes, the rings that separate you from the earth [/i]and I almost panic again. 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 [i]the clean air through the rustling grasses and the peace of the herd about me as we graze[/i] 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 step onto the bridge and hear the hollow sound as I plod across and approach the… town. I have the word now and my ears flatten and I shy back. But I can see others there now, a herd, and they are [i]together and safe and I remember the warmth at my flanks[/i] so I trot forward again.

As I approach them, they do not notice me. The sounds from their mouths are intricate and cadent, and they wash over my ears without touching me, and they are like the sounds of [i]the biting pain at my sides and carcass skin wrapped over my back and the tug that pulls my head where demons drive me[/i] so I stop still and stare at them, trembling. 

They are not running together or grazing or mating, they stand in unnatural twos or threes and they are making things or exchanging things and there is a mare facing a stallion and he does not press her, though[i] I feel the wind in my mane as I run and the aching hollow of my lust in my loins as he chases me and I yield to him climbing upon my back with his breath at my ears and his teeth clamping on my neck[/i] but they are not what I was or what the herd was or what we would have, should have been. They, like demons, [i]make[/i] but do not [i]grow.[/i]

And as they finally see me, they gather around me and [i]smile[/i] at me, and in response I feel the corners of my mouth jerk sharply up and back.