November Horses

Prologue - Jae

note: based on the scorpio races. critiques are encouraged.. name is not set. if you have a suggestion for the title, please tell me because I don't have annnnyy ideas c:

•••Tomorrow is November 1st. Tomorrow, out on that beach, someone will die.•••

* * * 

•••22 Days•••

Jae

The sea roils, black waves crashing with aggression against the white shore cliffs. Winds scour the landscape, riding the valleys and crests of the sheep fields and hissing at old stonework buildings clustered in tight groups. Where the October ocean beats sand instead of stone, it spits out creatures of the devil. These spawn stagger out of the water's clutches, stricken with a demonic hunger but torn as if leaving a friend for the last time. On their four legs, they leap and paw the thick air; throwing their heads back and screaming their hate. Fires of Hell burn in what is not white of their eyes, and their ears sit glued down to their poll. In great rivets, saltwater runs off the equine, dripping down the hocks and staining the sand. Once again, the devil creatures rear in the remaining dusk, declaring their hunger with a shrill whinny and striking the stony ground with a sharp clang; then galloping off with unmeasured speed into the wilds of the island.

* * *

Water horses. Capaill uisce. They traverse the lands, running off the blood and gore of anything the devils can get their teeth on. Every October, they leave their home of the sea and brave land to satisfy their hunger. And in that same October, men brave the seas to capture these beasts; many spilling large amounts of blood across the stony beaches of our island. The ones that *do* survive unscathed, go on to spend two endless weeks gambling with death; each day a battle between their respective capall uisce and themselves. Rider would protect himself in every way possible, which meant utilizing the fabled charms-bells around pasterns, silver breast plates, petals on bridles, ribbons streaming from manes and tails. Even the most religious of men would hash off to the pagan tricks, earning the momentary distaste of the household's women. Whatever it would take to keep the water horse running in a straight line on the beach, they did it. Only the fools, in those men's eyes, didn't use charms. 

I am not a fool. 

In fact, I am anything but a fool. For almost eleven out of my nineteen years, I have breathed this life. And 5 times, in the races we call the Scorpio Races, I have won-the only thing protecting me from the capall being the saddle between our skins. My mother was the one who got me into racing. She owned a prominent horse yard and bred high-quality thoroughbreds, that in October, the mainlanders bought and shipped back to their own yards. Once the horse had won its plethora of purses, the equine was sent back to the her yard to drop another champion, or league of them. This was the cycle of our lives for sometime. Until I started racing-racing capaill. 

The deadly beast beneath now trembles. Her eyes roll, her lips foam. Every once and awhile, her tail flicks off a fly. We stand in the water-deep enough that it laps high enough to barely reach her knees. Off far in the distance, the wail of a capall echoes to the protected cove where we are. A water horse throws his water-blackened head high up out of the sea; nostrils flaring. The uisce mare parts her mouth as if to whinny and I feel her muscles in her hindquarters bunching. My fingers let loose of her reins and pick up strands of her mane. I lean forward and count to seven, my face inches from her long ear, and one hand brushes the hairs on her throat latch. She stiffens under my touch; then relaxes. I remain tense, hunched up on her withers while her ears flick backwards; trying to listen to the hushed crowd behind us. I let myself breathe again, now that her attention has left the capall in the water. Letting go of her throat latch, I reach for the reins and lean slightly back down her withers. Her head whips around, teeth bared. I snap the reins along her neck, hard, and whisper in her ear. 

"You will not take me away today." 

She merely stomps her foot and focuses her gaze on the cliffs ahead. I turn her around to face the beach-two furlongs of white sand, still smooth from the waves the night before. The only hoof prints on the beach are mine, as would be every morning for the next month. The horse shakes her head out, jingling the bit. Her body stiffens at the bell-like sound. I press a thin strip of iron on her withers and she calms. The gathering of people behind me whispers anxiously.  

"When is he going to run her?" They ask. 

I answer them by brushing my hand over her croup and leaning forward to speak to the mare. She responds by leaping forward, kicking up a cloud of sand in the process, and pounds the beach in a gallop. Her sudden burst of speed surprises me-but she soon tires way before the sand has run out. I let her have her head but keep her in a straight line; her eyes facing the cliffs and not the ever-darkening ocean. Never let a capall see the water, because before you can jerk him around, he will have you in his clutches and drowning in the salty frays. I keep the mare going how I want her until there is less than half of beach left, then reach up close to her face and whisper for her to give all that she's got. We finish the furlongs faster than we started. 

No sooner than do we finish than I hear the cry of a water horse. Meant to travel great distances under water, the call is an unearthly scream that causes chills along spines. The uisce mare screeches to a halt and snaps her head up, jerking the reins in my hands. I tug her down and tie her mane in sevens and threes, counting to nineteen over and over in her ear. But the wildness will remain in her heart, even after four years of being on land, and her calls back to the capall in the water. The lather she worked up running now resembles the sea foam, as if she'd just stepped from the ocean. My hands work faster in her mane, and I count with more of a rhythm. I pull out the iron again and slap it on her rump. She starts, but her call does not falter. I turn her around to run her back to the cliffs, to get her attention off the other uisce, and she listens. The whole run back I repeat in her ear: 

"You will not drown me today. You will not drown me today." 

But I falter and the song of the mare captures my attention... I feel it pulling at my heart, calling me to the sea, urging me to run with the horse back to the water, back to the spray. I keep her going on the beach. The call still sings to me, sucking me in deeper. My hands stop at her mane, I still back in the saddle. The uisce mare almost stumbles, and her song skips a beat. My judgement returns to me, and I untangle myself from her and intentionally leap off her back. In the midst of my descent, I hear a splash in the water.  

And with that splash, goes years of my hard work. Wasted on a nameless capall uisce mare.