All That's Left

With Gain, Comes Loss

Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.

I reached over and slapped my hand around in the general vicinity of my enemy, the alarm clock. I hit the button and looked at the time. 4 am! I never wake up this early...I didn't even set my alarm either, it's Saturday! I groaned when the beeping kept on, and I saw a flashing light. Startled, I saw up in bed. My walkie-talkie's light was blinking. I was across the room in a single leap, and I clicked the button on the walkie-talkie.
"Lila, Lila, can you hear me? You need you get down to barn 2, stall 11. Look Sun just went into labor."
Not bothering to respond, I threw on a flannel shirt and my boots before rushing down the stairs. I sprinted across the gravel courtyard as fast as my school track team's fastest sprinter. Luckily, the barns lot was open. If it hasn't been, there would have been a Lila-shaped hole in it. This was Lexus' last foal, and it was going to be mine. After this, Lexus would be turned out to pasture for the rest of her life because of her health issues. Her bad leg couldn't bear to support her for another pregnancy. I flashed back to spending the days in the fields with her when she was recovering from her injury when she was 4.

Lexus was shivering and spooked up at me with pleading eyes. I could tell she was in a lot of pain, and that worried me because Lexus was always relatively calm during her previous birthings. She wasn't this time, though, and that meant something was wrong.

10 minutes later, a brown foal entered the world. He stood up immediately, looking for his mother, but fell down. He tried again, and this time, he kept his footing.

"Li, take him to Farland. She lost her foal and this colt needs to nurse now," our vet told me.

I did as he said, coaxing the small colt across the aisle to the other mare. She nickered softly, and after a minute, he began to nurse. I started to go back to Lexus' stall, but the door was closed. That was bad. If they shut me out, there was a reason.
Lexus must be in bad shape, I thought.

Only a few minutes later, our head groom, Harry, walked out of the stall. "There's nothing we can do," he said softly. "I told her you wanted to say goodbye first."

Look Sun was going to die. My best friend growing up was not going to be there when I went to feed the other horses a few hours.

I rushed into the stall, and Lexus raised her head an inch or so off the ground to look at me. The ghost of a nicker escaped her lips, and I kneeled beside her.
"Lexus, you're my best friend. Run free, Look Sun. You deserve it." I kissed her nose and Lexus licked my face before her head fell into my lap and the light faded from her eyes even as she looked at me one last time.

========[one year later]=========

I brushed the brown colt's rump and watched in amazement as the dust flew off, making a little dust storm.
"How do you get so dirty?! We don't even have dust patches in your pasture for you to roll in!" I exclaimed. Lexus' son gave me a look that clearly said "And that's bad?". It wasn't that the brown colt was a handful, he just had some personality quirks. He was one now, and well-broken, but still far from racing. Heck, he didn't even have a name.