In Small Heath | Peaky Blinders

twenty; friendly foals

Years.

It had been years since Bash felt the soft mane of a horse beneath his hands, braided or otherwise - and he missed it.

He missed the calming effect horses had on people, but most importantly, he'd missed their company. Horses weren't so different from humans, they judged a person from how they made them feel, the very same way humans did. They excel at judging peoples characters, and that was why Bash enjoyed their company as much as he did.

The first friend he had ever made as a small boy, was bad news and Old Faithful knew it.

It wasn't long before the boy was caught stealing from Arthur Senior, and of course that reflected back upon Bash. He definitely didn't bring many friends home after that incident.

So when the reminder that Bash had promised Charlie that he'd take him down to see the horses was brought up, it filled the Shelby boy with apprehension and an ounce of dread. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to know whether or not his horse liked Charlie, it was more so the fact that he'd been thrown off and kicked by Old Faithful when he could see - and now without his sight, he hadn't quite convinced himself that he was ready to do this alone.

"Are all of these horses yours, Bash?" Charlie asked, leaning half way over the wooden fence that probably needed repairing in places.

For a moment, Bash paused. He couldn't quite remember how many horses he'd stored away in the back field opposite the shipyard, but he knew it couldn't have been more than six.

He didn't remember buying more than the six originally in the field, anyway.

"Two are, the rest are either my uncles or my brothers. Ada hates the things, but I paid her tenbob to look after Old Faithful and Sparta during the war. Sparta's this old lump of a horse, used to be in the races, was a fantastic jumper..." if given the chance, Bash would drown Charlie's brain with horse information but he was able to cut himself short of giving the younger boy a headache.

Nodding to himself, as he absorbed all of the new information he was given, Charlie kept watching as the horses in the field strolled around - looking as free as he now felt.

He hadn't been much of an animal man before the war, but there was something about them, how they cared and showed very little bias, that made him realise that maybe, just maybe he could find a friend in a beast.

Though, maybe he'd start off small, with like a dog, or a rabbit.

"Can you tell who's who? I mean— now you can't see a whole lot of anything." Charlie asked, breaking the short but pleasant silence that had fallen upon the two.

For a moment, he cast his mind back to 1913, days after his birthday - when an heavy and thick fog had swept across most of the Midlands. There were certain things that horses did to make themselves stand out amongst the rest, and the one that came straight to mind was Spartas inability to not bite the hand that feeds him.

Old Faithful was docile, but he always nudged his head against Bash's, like a dog trying to bury his treats.

The others... he hadn't known well enough to be able to figure those little niches out, but in time he knew he'd hack it.

"Spartas a fat fuck, who bites... but he's the one with the chestnut colourings. I'm pretty sure his mane is as close to yellow as a living being could get.." a small paused followed, wondering what would be the best way to phrase what he wanted to say next.

"And when you think the suns gone out, that's how you know Old Faithfuls about." 

As if on cue, the sun began to dip just behind a horses head. The curious beast plodded along until he stopped right in front of Charlie and Bash. Charlie could only guess that this friendly giant was the infamous Old Faithful.