ride or die

When Farina was born, there was a boy with a scattering of freckles across his pale nose and hair that glowed like fire in the light of the setting sun. He was a missing one of his front teeth. Farina noticed that when a giant grin split his face. “Father, Father!” He cried. “Look! Isn’t she so beautiful?”

And a big burly man with curly red hair and a large beard, who Farina would later learn was the lord of the manor into whose service she had been born into, ruffled the boy’s bouncy curls gently.

“Yes, she is,” the lord agreed, and let the boy give Farina her name. She liked the ring of it – she liked it more when she learned it was the name of an aunt carousing across the country that the lad missed.

“I hope she comes home soon,” the boy said, petting Farina’s soft nose and offering her an apple.

His father sighed. “Yes, well,” he said. “She will return when she is ready and willing to.”

The following weeks and months flew by until Farina was in the small enclosed space adjacent to the stables into which she’d been born, trailing after her mother on legs that still wobbled a little. Farina was the fourth child her mother had whelped, Farina had learned. She watched as her mother rejoined the herd with wickers of good cheer, greeting her children who were older and larger. The ones already serving their lord and his sons, carrying them into battle and dying where no one would mourn them. Farina had even heard that while the lord’s sons were offered tribute and laid to rest in the cemetery not far from her enclosure, her brothers and sisters would receive no such honors.

Farina told herself firmly it didn’t matter, that she wouldn’t allow the lack of accolades to daunt her, and threw herself fully into her training. Indeed, her trainer commented to her in private that she was a good horse, quick and nimble, and would make a fine match for any son the lord gave to her. Farina walked on air as long as it took to get back to her resting place and see that the boy was not there.

The boy, Farina had heard, was the only trueborn son of his lord father. He was small for his age, and quick, too, so Farina had a hope that they would be allowed to sortie out together, a hope that she very firmly squashed so it wouldn’t get in the way of her training. And he seemed to like her, thankfully. He was always dropping by with little treats for her and telling her about his day. Farina would happily crunch through a fresh bucketful of oats or a crispy carrot or, best of all, a lump of sugar, carved straight from the sugar log the young lad must’ve nabbed from the kitchens. Farina felt very special at those times, like there wasn’t she couldn’t do, not with her little boy by her side.

But there was also times that her little boy would show up with cuts running up and down his arms, bruises slowly fading from purple to yellow on his face and say nothing at all. He’d clutch his arms around her neck, so tight he nearly strangled her, and her mane would become wet with his tears. And even though the boy never said a word about who was giving him all those terrible injuries, so bad sometimes that weeks went by before he came back, limping with a perilously cheery smile, the truth was that there was plenty of times Farina had borne witness to the interactions between him and his oldest brother. She liked it none too little, and had half a mind to kick down the wooden fence lining the enclosure just to give the boy’s brother a piece of her mind. But if she did that then the trainer would probably tut at her and tell her she had no business being any noble son’s stead. And the lord would agree, naturally, and there would go all of Farina’s hard work, flying out the window.

So Farina waited. The years passed surprisingly quickly, and in no time at all it felt like she was being fitted for stirrups and all manor of things she’d need to follow her little boy into battle. Only, he wasn’t a little boy anymore, was he? He was tall and long like a blade of grass. His smiles were as easy as ever and he still found time to give her treats so Farina excused him all the visits to the local village to get drunk and come stumbling back home, giggling at something only he could see. He slept around, too, Farina found that out when the lord yelled loud enough to send birds scattering up into the open skies. And, well, he didn’t confide his troubles in her anymore, but that was okay, because Farina knew them already. She was determined to bring him home safe, a hero forged on the battlefield.

The night before their first major battle, the little boy came and found her and hugged her nose like he’d done when he’d been ten instead of twenty and told her he was scared of dying. And that was okay, because secretly Farina was scared of dying too, or worse yet, someone killing her young lordling and then leaving her to run back to camp, his blood dying her sides red. And so she bit his sleeve, just a little bit, and bumped her head against his chest until he was laughing again, and that made it better.

Later, they both came home, and they hadn’t won, but they hadn’t died either, so as far as Farina was concerned all was well. Her little boy had had new life breathed into him while they’d been gone. There was no cuts or bruises lingering on his skin, and he walked without a limp. His arm was in a sling, but that was fine, that had come from stopping a lance from impaling Farina through the neck. She could tolerate him being injured for her sake, even if she disliked the smell of his blood.

Farina’s mother greeted her with a wicker when she was reintroduced to the pen. They traded kisses and Farina’s mother listened quietly while Farina told her all she’d seen of the world, a knowing light in her eyes and it was good, the best Farina had ever known. Naturally, it couldn’t last.

It was the middle of the night when her little boy came clambering into the stables. There was snow dusting the bottom of his leather boots and his hands were red with cold and there was a fresh bruise blooming over his right eye. Farina hurriedly got up from where she was resting on the straw and went to her boy, who she was even more worried to notice was crying. He hugged her nose and buried his face in her mane, and whispered so quietly she barely heard him: “Farina, I don’t know if I can keep doing this. All of this.” He gestured with his hand to the stout stone keep lit from within from torchlight that the two of them could see from the window he’d just come in from. “I keep thinking if I work hard enough, Father will notice what my brother has been doing and tell him stop.” Even his laughter was wet, Farina noticed with no small amount of alarm. Her little boy swallowed thickly before he could continue, his voice trembling. “He saw. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t stop it.”

He was shaking, Farina realized. She pressed her nose close, feeling her little boy’s pain the same as she would her own. Oh, if only she had hands and legs to go along with it. She would pick up a sword and defend her little boy’s honor, same as any goodly knight would. Even a voice would do. Farina could then tell her little boy to pack a bag and run away with her, off into the night.

But at the end of the day, Farina was a horse, and this was not a horse’s world.