Chasing the Stars

Rescue

I've been dreaming of the day when I was rescued from this bloody island.

But I never actually thought it would come.

Yes, I know how that sounds. I'm quite a young horse - eight years or so. But I actually do think that maybe, just maybe, I might not make it off.

The air seems to be dirty, every breath I take scraped the inside of my lungs with coarse dirt and sand. The rain drizzles down, but I stare up at the sky, perfectly dry. It's been two years since I was stranded on this island. I've made a shelter.

My hole is no longer just dirt, the bottom is coated with soft leaves, and lovely-smelling flowers ring rim. A long stick is stabbed through many palm leaves, and even more sticks stab those ones, and they hole more. Six tall sticks with a y-shape at the end are stuck into the ground, and they hold open the make-shift roof.

My life may not be better on the island than it was on land, but it certainly is different. Instead of a comfy, warm stall filled with delicious grain and hay, I have a leaf-and-flower nest, with grass on the outside and a puddle next to it.

But I miss Jacob, and I miss Rose and Apier.

But something makes my heart long for Apier far more than I yearn for Jacob or Rose. It makes my heart ache thinking about him. I've never felt that before. Never.

I wish I knew why.

I wake up, my heart punding as I hear a low growl in the distance. There's never been a predator on the island in the two whole years that I have lived here. Never!

And prick my ears, hoping that the animal doesn't hear my heart thumping, climbing up into my throat.

I breathe a sigh of reliefe as I realize that the noise is coming from the ocean. It isn't on this island, and there is no predators in the ocean.

The growl comes closer and it turns into a roar.

I take offf at a Gallop towards the beach to see the noise.

A large, silver, metal ... thing is zooming towards me.

Wait ... no. Not towards. Towards something else. Something in the distance, but not to far off my right.

I rear up pinning my hooves to my chest and whinny as long and loud as possible, and stay in that position, throwing my head, for as long as I can.

The silver contraption slows, and a human points and shouts.

The thing hurtles towards me, slowing just before it hits the shore.

It stands about ten feet from the waterline, and I can see a teenage girl with a man, standing on the silver mobile.

The girl looks like she was once pale, but working long, hard hours in the sun has turned her tan, with long, blonde hair tied back in a thick but messy braid and dark blue eyes.

The man is tan as well, but tall with cropped brown hair and green eyes.

The girl clambers into the rail of the silver-thing, perches there for a second, before plunging into the water. The dark sea, lit with evening light, goes up to her chest, and she runs, as much as she can, to the shore.

As soon as she splashes onto the beach, I can see that she is wearing sandy-brown johdpurs, knee-high brown leather boots, and a purple tank. She slowly walks towards me, her hand outstreached.

"You're the one from the news. The one from the article two years ago, aren't you?" She whispers, her footsteps making no sound in the hot sand.

I shift my weight. Something about this girl makes me trust her. I curiously sniff at her palm and she laughs a sweet, soft laugh.

"There's nothing dangerous about you, is there, huh?" she whispers as she steps closer and rubs her gentle fingers across my muzzle.

"Calia." the man is on the shore, and has a silver slab in his hand. I recognize it from when I was with Jacob. He called it his phone. "I'm going to call Rodrigo, so he can bring a boat to collect her. We weren't exactly expecting to catch a wild horse."

"There's nothing 'wild' about her." Calia insists. "She was tame once, and then wrongfully abandoned."

"There's a reason she was abandoned." the man sighs. "Come back onto the motorboat so we can go home."

Calia shakes her head. "I'm going to wait with her. He won't know how to find the island, unless I text him our location. You can go back, Charl."

Charl makes a frustrated noise. "I can't leave without you. Rodrigo will kill me."

I then realize, while he is talking and holding the phone up to his ear, that he is a boy, not a man. Seventeen, maybe? And Calia looks about fifteen.

Charl clambers back into the boat. "My new boots are going to be ruined." He grumbles. "They'll be soaking for days."

"My boots will be fine." Calia snorts. "At least I had the smarts to buy waterproof boots. And won't it be worth it? We rescued a horse. A famous jumper horse."

"She hasn't been worked in years, Cal. She might not even be able to jump any more."

Calia rolls her eyes. "She has to be about eight? Ten? How old was she in the news artcile?"

"Six."

"And it's been two years."

"So she's eight.

Calia smiles. "She's still pretty young. But she is about breeding age. Maybe we can find her a nice stallion for her."

"If Rodrigo wants her in the stable." Charl argues.

A rumbling on the distant horizon interrupts us and a large, blue boat, much like the one that brought me here isspeeding towards us. It stops much farther, and they lower the ramp.

A man, not a boy, jogs off the ramp with a brown halter.

"This is the one?" he asks Calia. "She doesn't look dangeruous. And after ten minutes of grooming, and she'll look like she never saw the wild."

Calia shoots Charl a smug look. "That's what I said, Rodrigo!"

Rodrigo's eyebrows shoot up in surprise when he sees how Calia is stroking me. "I guess she's still pretty tame, then." He walks up, but I whinny, backing away.

"Easy, girl." Calia reaches her hands up to brush them over my muzzle, which I jerked high in the air.

I snort, lowering my head so she can rub my forehead again.

Rodrigo shakes his head. "Calia, she won't let any of us close to her. I'll give you the halter so you can put it on."

Calia gives me one last rub, before walking over to Rodrigo and taking the halter. She walks back over to me, as cautious and slowly as she first did.

I nicker and shift my wieght, but stay still.

She slips the halter over my head and takes the leadrope. She starts slowly walking towards the ramp, but I rear and whinny: "No! No! No more taking me away and dropping me off on islands so I can survive on my own!"

Unlike the crewman, Calia stops. "Come one, sweet girl. We're going to take you off this island."

I tilt my head. Off the island? I stop rearing and slowly walk towards the beach. Calia stays at my left shoulder the whole time, her right hand brushing my black fur.

Once I am loaded on, I take notice of how different this boat is from the one that brought me here. The stall is big and warm, not small and cold. The water is clean and cold, not slimy and gross, while the hay is soft and dry, when the hay from the other boat was covered with grime, and everything poked at me when I ate it and it was sodden, dripping with slimy water.

I drink and eat until there is no more. 

1336 words! I ... just ... wow <3

(Hiya! Goatflower30 from the FUUUUUUUTURE here! I'm rereading this and I'm realizing how much of a 'horse girl' cliche Calia is ... and I know how much I despise that cliche ... so yeah, expect this chapter to be heavily edited in the future!)