Sneaky Post Is Sneaky

I promised myself I'd post every day, but I totally forgot to post today, as I was getting things ready to donate, and doing my taxes and cleaning my bunny cages. Totally my bad, but I really did want to post... So this is sneaky post, trying to write something worth reading in 19 minutes, but I never know what to write in the best of times, so I'm just going to write some fiction that I've had floating in my head for a while now.

*********

He lifted his head, nostrils gently scenting the air as his ears flicked about, searching for any danger. As he moved, a few mares in his band looked up as well. They followed his lead, knowing he was alert to all dangers. After a few moments, he huffed softly and lowered his head once more, lips and teeth working on the tasteless brown grass. He was hopeful that the spring would come soon, though with spring came the added stress of his mares foaling, and him having to slow his pace to allow the long legged foals to keep up. You had to give if you wanted to take, and though he couldn't think in those words, if he could have, he would.

The stallion was a beautiful stud, free and untouched by man. His life had started on these plains, and would end on these plains. His rich brown pelt was marred only by the scars of his battles; his ebony mane and tail brushed only by the trees and scrub. He had seen humans before, but would never allow them to capture him. Instinctively he knew that were they to capture him, he would become a slave to them, like the beasts that they sat upon.

The first time he had seen a horse ridden, he had screamed, calling to the creature to join him, offering his assistance. The horse had not responded, it simply carried on as it had before. The stallion had been little more than a colt, but his fear of men had started at that point, for the horse seemed broken, both in mind and spirit. It had taken a long time for the colt to realize that the scent of man was not as foreboding as the scent of a wolf or bear, and an even longer time for him to become willing to approach the farms that stood at the edge of the Ghost Forest which he called home.

Eventually he had become courageous enough, daring enough to approach those farms, and finally become bold enough to leap gracefully over the fences which kept him from the mares within. Several of his band was marked with brands, or bore a remaining shoe or scar which told of their recent domestication. Sometimes the females wouldn't follow him, despite his bugling and pleading, but more often than not, the mares were as eager as he to leap the fence and follow him into the forest.

He did not know it, but the locals called the bay stallion Turpin, after a famous British thief, and they intended to capture him and his band, to reclaim the mares he had stolen.