7068 | Adopt Claim

The fresh air burned his lungs in a way he had never been so grateful for. His nostrils flare wide, his chest expanding as he greedily drinks the cool air into his starved lungs. He can’t remember the last time wind tasted this good on his tongue. Hell, he can barely remember the last time he felt wind.

Blue eyes crack open to take in his surroundings. He didn’t even know where to start. What was freedom? When was he last free? Has he ever known freedom before?

Anxiety suddenly constricts his chest, expelling the precious oxygen he’d only just inhaled. His legs quiver, panic overtakes his senses and suddenly even standing starts to feel like a challenge. The stallion collapses to the ground in a heap, lead lowered and extended with his nostrils expanded as wide as possible and maw gaping.

His vision swims.

When the stallion awakens moments later, his muscles are sore and his head is still a little light. “Ugh, that’s new. This might have been a mistake.” Slowly, he sits up, back legs tucked beneath his backside and front limbs sprawled in front of him. Was he sick? Was leaving the ranch a bad idea after all?

The stallion grimaces, closing his eyes tight and gritting his teeth. That familiar tightening was starting to form in his chest again. He exhales sharply and sucks in a breath. Clean air and fresh grass fills his lungs and that anxiety starts to dissipate. He does it again, and again, and again. Within minutes, a calm settles over the bay stallion.

The next time he opens his eyes, he feels more stable, more grounded. His muscles are still sore, weak from the tension caused by his anxiety attack, but he’s feeling better, like himself. Like maybe this wasn’t a bad idea after all. “Come on. You can do this.” Pep talk completed, he pushes himself back to a standing position.

Food. Water. Essentials to living. His stomach hurt when he was hungry. His throat felt dry and parched when he was thirsty. He was feeling both of those things now and he needed to tend to them before making any further decisions.

Lowering his head, he sets to grazing, clamping his dull teeth on the green, dew-y strands and tugging them free. He remembers a time when he once grazed in fenced fields. When he was released from the tight confines of his prison and allowed to stretch and experience a taste of freedom. “Ha. More like the illusion of freedom.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the glint of metal beneath his hoof. He pauses in his meal, lifting his hoof to inspect the non-organic matter. Affixed to the bottom of his hoof is a horseshoe. Small tufts of grass and dirt are stuck in the gap between the hoof and metal, but it looks otherwise high in quality and new. The stallion frowns, exhales, and lowers his leg.

No longer hungry, he starts to wander. How does one even go about finding water?

Shaking his head, he presses forward. However, the shake reminds him of one more thing. One more tether to his previous life that was mere hours behind him. Still attached to his head is his halter, or at least, one of them. Dangling from the halter, near his chin, was a rope that hung to the ground. The lead.

Frowning, he shakes his head, tossing the rope around until he could step forward and place his hoof on the end to hold it in place. “This is either going to go very badly, or very worse.” Grunting, the stallion pulls his head back, putting tension on the rope. He can feel pain along the top of his head and behind his jaw, where the halter is secured in place to prevent this very thing from happening.

The bay pangare gives it several attempts. Even lowering his head and stepping a little further onto the rope to provide more leverage, twisting his head this way and that in an attempt to wiggle out. Unfortunately, every attempt ends in failure and when all is said and done, all he’s managed is to give himself a headache.

Sighing, he gives up. At various moments he thought the rope might be giving way, bending to his will, yet he felt no closer to getting it off now than he did then.

Suddenly, one of his ears twitches, swiveling to the side, his head following the motion shortly after. A soft trickling. Water! With a sudden burst of energy and excitement, he starts to trot toward the sound, his hooves impacting the earth with rhythmic thuds.

Too wrapped up in his discovery, he doesn’t notice the mud patch hidden among the grass until it’s too late. One of his front hooves lands in the slippery substance and slides out from under his body, propelling him forward. “Woah!” The stallion tumbles, hitting the ground with a harsh thud before rolling down a small hill. He bounces off a tree trunk, grunting in pain while a small cracking sound can be heard, before coming to a stop at the edge of a river, his backside falling into the moving water with a ‘splash!’

“Ugh, I’m starting to think being free isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe there’s something to living in a barn with humans taking care of you.”

Groaning, the bay horse pushes to his hooves, looking down at his current state. Mud was smeared along his left front leg and belly, a grass stain was along his right hip and the rope…was gone! While the halter was still attached, the rope had detached! Perhaps that had been the crack he’d heard during his tumble. Nothing felt broken. Just bruised. Like a hard day in the arena.

He turns around and looks down into the water to take in his reflection. His once pristine fur was matted with mud and dirt, causing a few strands to stick out awkwardly. The halter, once the same shade of blue as his eyes, was now caked with mud. Under his chin, where the lead was previously attached, was a broken metal hinge. A metal plate along his cheek was still visible, attached to the halter, imprinted with the word “CHAMPION.” The stallion snorts, “Champion. How ironic.”

With a sigh, the horse lowers his head to the stream and laps at the water. For his first day on his own, free of humans, free of responsibility, it could have gone worse.