A Lame Horse

by **Mahaleth** on May 9th, 2015, 1:18 am

The sea, Dravite said. They could go to the sea. That was where Belhatir's mother was from: the sea. Belhatir had never seen the sea, himself. He couldn't begin to imagine what it was like on the water and he began to daydream until Dravite's worried voice snapped him back to attention.
"How would you curse me?"
Belhatir made a face. "The whole pavilion," he said, "because I'm never going to have sons. Not even daughters. Because I don't want a wife."
The rest of the words stuck in the back of his throat and he didn't say them, 'I don't want to touch girls, not the way you and the others want to.'
There was something wrong with him. Something he didn't have a name for, that he didn't think anyone had a name for, other than "cursed."

Belhatir scratched the back of his thigh. He thought about moving his feet, one foot after another, and they grew heavier and heavier until Belhatir realized he couldn't move. That he didn't know where to go, anyway, and he wouldn't know how to survive out in the world alone. And neither did Dravite, really, if they were both honest. They didn't even have striders. Suddenly exhausted, Belhatir sat down on the ground. "I can't," he sighed. "I can't leave. I don't know how to leave. Do you know how to leave?" He sounded helpless, and he was tired beyond his years. He sat there hating himself and hating the pavilion and hating, for the first time, the Drykas and their customs.

The sea. Belhatir wanted the sea. The city. The open air. But he was stuck circling the same grassland, doing the same things, seeing the same people, eating the same food and chasing the same horses. Belhatir kept the bile down, but just barely, as he shook his head and said, "Nevermind. Nevermind. I change my mind. You stay. We can stay."

by **Dravite** on May 9th, 2015, 5:06 am

Dravite was quiet for a time, mulling over everything Belhatir was saying, things he had never said before. He didn't quite realise what his friend was trying to tell him concerning girls and marriage, didn’t understand that Belhatir was not attracted to women like he was. "You'll have sons and daughters," Dravite smiled, "You aren't cursed and you won't curse the pavilion."

He was both relieved and somewhat disappointed that Belhatir had changed his mind about leaving the pavilion tonight, but when he had a moment to really think about it he knew as well as Bel that the two of them wouldn't last three days alone. They couldn't hunt, had nothing to start a fire with, had not bonded with any of the horses, and could barely tell east from west; something to do with the sun right?

Dravite sat listening to the night birds call to one another, there was a light breeze and a little bit of a cold chill starting to settle in across the plain; it would probably be frosty tonight. He got up and threw Belhatir's bedding in his friend's lap before unrolling his own in the long grass. Dravite dived onto his bedroll and flattened the tussocks beneath it with a bit of a wriggle before settling down under the cover of his blanket. "We should sleep out here tonight under the stars, then we can stay up and talk without getting into trouble," he chuckled and looked at his friend to see what he thought.

Carefully, he studied the young man’s face and watched as Belhatir slowly sorted out his bed for the night; he felt like his friend had said a lot but still hadn’t managed to get whatever it was that bothered him off his chest. “Just because we haven’t got our striders yet doesn’t mean you won’t meet a nice girl, Bel. Besides, all the girls like you, what about Dwyn? She seemed to like you a lot.” Dravite gave a playfully little wag of his brow as he said Dwyn’s name.

by **Mahaleth** on May 9th, 2015, 5:41 am

"I don't like Dwyn." Bel brushed dust off his bedding and kicked away a few rocks to clear a smooth space to lie on. "I don't like Sulya. I don't like Farah. I don't like any of them. But I think Leyo is handsome. And I think I want to kiss Ortias." The words flew like startled birds out of Belhatir's mouth.

He turned his back to Dravite as, in the dark, his cheeks and the inside of his mouth burned. Prickling heat rose up in the back of his neck and his armpits, but Belhatir's hands and his lips were cold. Belhatir pretended to be busy with the ties in his bedding and his clothes. Anything to not have to see the look on Dravite's face.

by **Dravite** on May 9th, 2015, 9:25 am

The call of the night birds fell away, even the breeze seemed to still as Dravite lay wrapped up in his blanket on the bedroll; stunned. This was a secret, a big secret Belhatir had been holding in for a long time from everyone, why then had he chosen to share it with Dravite? Everyone knew he was rubbish at keeping a secret, he told his mother everything, but he couldn’t tell her this; he could tell this to no one or Belhatir would be sent away on foot to be swallowed up by the golden tide.

His pulse thumped in his ears loudly and there was a knot of words stuck in his throat, things he wanted to ask Belhatir that he dare not give life to with his tongue. Dravite swallowed down his questions and sat up on his bedroll looking across at his friend, or the back of him rather, as Belhatir had turned away because he felt ashamed Dravite told himself.

Dravite folded his legs against his chest and wrapped his arms around the long limbs loosely. He sat his chin upon his right knee and stared ahead of him, watching the grass move under a black sky. Why, Dravite wondered; what had caused his best friend to pine for the embrace of a man over a woman? He couldn’t quite get his head around the thought and didn’t dare ask Belhatir. “What if you just pretended to like girls?”

Ever the devotee, Dravite was already trying to come up with a plan to disguise his friend’s secret from the rest of the pavilion. “What if you married a nice girl Farah; can’t you just ignore those feelings?”

Dravite had paused before the last word, tempted to add something like ‘strange’ to his sentence, but he refused to insult Belhatir, who was destined to lead the Windborne pavilion one day. Those strange feelings. The unspoken words circled around in his mind as he pictured Belhatir kissing one of their friends, Leyo or Ortias; both would thump him for sitting too close, let alone attempting a peck to the cheek or lips. “You have to ignore it,” Dravite said then as if he had made his mind up on Belhatir’s behalf, “You are Windborne. You are Drykas.”

by **Mahaleth** on May 10th, 2015, 8:06 am

Old Man Tal, as Belhatir liked to call him, used to tell them stories about the beginning of the world and how everything came to pass. The story of Zulrav and Semele's song, of Serifal Drykas, and the Valterrian were old favorites. Belhatir used to listen, enthralled, when Old Man Tal told the story as if he had been there to see it himself: of Alahea and Suvan, of the wedding, of the great cataclysms that tore through the earth and shaped Mizahar into what it was.

The Drykas, Alaheans, held on to their old ways while the rest of the world plunged into darkness and chaos. Their old ways shepherded them through the apocalypse and into the new era, "which is why," Old Man Tal said, winking at the boys, "we must honor our traditions, our Striders, and our gods. We'll continue to survive if we do - and we'll die if we don't. Do you understand?"

Everyone nodded except for Belhatir.

He didn't understand.

He didn't think he would ever understand.

Belhatir felt the cold cling to his bones like a second skin. Tears like insects crept into his ears as he looked up at the stars, studiously avoiding Dravite's gaze. "You have to ignore it," Dravite told him. "You are Windborne. You are Drykas."

It was Belhaur that Belhatir heard speaking out of Dravite's mouth. It was a favorite refrain of his father's: "You are Windborne," he said, every time Belhatir missed a shot at a deer or failed to come back with a Strider after a day of hanging around the herd. "Act like it."

"That's what I'll have to do," Belhatir said. "I'll have to pretend." Like a coward, he thought, to be something I'm not. For Dravite's benefit, Belhatir added, "Maybe I won't have to pretend," and then he rolled on to his side. "I'll just marry Dwyn. She looks enough like a boy."

Belhatir started laughing.

They were children. They were boys. The world was wide and strange and it echoed back to them in the night. It would be years before Belhatir's bitterness would catch up with him.

But for a moment, Belhatir laughed.

by **Ssezzkero** on June 8th, 2015, 3:45 am

Grades

Wow guys, this was a beautiful story. I quite like each of your characters opinions and emotions on Belhatir's confession. I'm especially interested because of the taboo it holds in the Drykas culture, which you both played out so well. It's truly a great piece of work and I can't wait to see more of your writing!

If you have any questions or concerns, PM me.

Belhatir

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Dravite

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