The chronicles of Dusty and Dakota.

°•Chapter One: The horse returns•°

It was a swelteringly hot summer day, and Dusty sat beneath the sparse shadow provided by the peach tree in his back yard, fanning himself with the previous day's paper as he sweat buckets.

His parents had gone out of town - something about a family intervention that children of their age (him being fourteen and his younger sister, Scarlett, being twelve) were apparently not fit to witness, lest it scarred their young and impressionable minds.

So for the day, Dusty had been stuck at home with his whiny little sister, who had disappeared beyond the forest starting just after their backyard with one of their family's horses.

'You're old enough now' his mother had said to him earlier that morning. 'I trust you can look after yourself and your sister for a couple of hours, until your father and I are back.'

Little had she known that he had just wanted her to stop yammering. He was in the middle of a particularly intense game of Minecraft, and her blarneying just wouldn't do. Some time after that, the scorching heat of the day had forced him to abandon the game and seek shelter in the cool breeze outside of their house.

Some time after he had decidedly situated himself beneath the peach tree, Scarlett had passed him by, a large dapple-grey stallion tottering along with her as she announced that she was taking Danté or Damien - or what ever the horse's name was - for a ride in the forest.

So hours later, when the stallion trotted back into their backyard with his sister nowhere in sight, a sliver of panic struck Dusty in the heart. He slowly stood, his tired limbs protesting, as his eyes scoured the opening for Scarlett. When a couple of minutes had passed by, his expectation for Scarlett to come bounding out of the forest had turned into a full-blown feeling of fearful desperation, because she had still not emerged from the of trees.

He ran then to the edge of the forest, where the horse had come to a stop, and began to call for her. He scanned through the countless trees fervidly and exhausted his voice as he called out for her for several minutes on end, but Scarlett never came out of the forest.

"Oh, Dominic!" He absently said to the horse, walking over to it and resting his arm on the saddle draped over it's back. "What am I going to do now? What am I going to tell mother? I was supposed to be looking after Scarlett but now she has disappeared!" He hyperventilated. "Where could she be?!"

"My name is not Dominic, you beslubbering, beef-witted, upside down triangle-shaped dinglebat. It is Dakota."

Dusty heard a deep, velvet-smooth and elegant voice (that he might have been hypnotized by if it had not hurled a manner of insults at him) say.

"And I would appreciate it if you removed your greasy little fingers from my saddle at once...!"

It took Dusty a while to realize that it was the horse that had spoken, seeing as there had been no one else around them and when he did, he sputtered in shock and stumbled over his own feet trying to run away from the animal as quickly as he could.

"Now you wait just a second, pal." He briefly stopped, seeming to have forgotten his fear as he narrowed his eyes at the stallion. "Who do you think you're calling a dinglebat?! How are you even talking anyway? And where the hell is my sister?!"

"Well, sir, if my memory serves me correct; it was you who I referred to as a dinglebat." The horse said, it's thick, rich baritone voice dripping with condescension and sarcasm. "I am none the wiser as to why I am currently able to speak. And to answer your last question; your sister is gone."

"G-g-gone?" Dusty's knees wobbled as fear seized him. "What do you mean Scarlett is gone?"

The horse, Dakota, harrumphed a sigh. "I say, I have always had my suspicions that humans were stupid, but I never thought that the situation was this dire."