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"Horse Tales"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, Very AU, so very AU it's AD, another
dimension. The GW boys are horses. My apologies. Please heed the warning. Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 6x5 Summary: A few lucky stallion purebreds are given a second chance at the Horse Haven Sanc-tuary. A/N: In defense of my writing this extreme version
of a GW story… Waterlily and Snowdragon made me do it, heh, heh… " Horse Tales" Chapter Thirteen- Locks are for Wusses (o) Duo's POV I'd been told by Solo, my chief source of information on horse culture while growing up, to me respectful of my elders, polite to the ladies, and gentle with those younger. He also said I was different and to "stay that way." By "different" I thought he meant like "cool", but as I grew up I learned he meant I was "intact" while he'd been "gentled." I was a stallion. He was a gelding, as were the other horses that passed through our stable over the years. What I had never gotten was contact with mares. Oh, I crossed paths with one or two while doing the park circuit, but not enough to gain any real knowledge about them. And you'da thought I'd picked up on the whole mating ritual, but I hadn't. Solo failed me there, but then he might have figured it was on a need-to know basis and since he and I weren't given any opportunities, I guess my "need to know" was zilch. In any case, I knew stallions "herded" and "mounted" mares, and raked Heero over the coals at first about doing that to me-not that it stopped him-until we agreed on making it a game, of sorts, where he always got to win and be on top, the bossy thing, but I myself never had any real drive to do either. Now I that I'd had first-hand experience with mares, I'd learned that female hormones could do a job on a guy's head. They could be as determined as all get out and were very, very scary. The mares had confused me, distracted me from lending a hoof where hooves were needed. I felt bad about leaving 'Ro in the lurch like that, but then it hadn't just been me. Spot and Sunshine had had aggressive mares after them, too. I should have seen it as a "divide and conquer" kind of attack they'd launched, making Goldie and 'Ro take on the leaders and keeping us occupied. Next time, and, oh yeah, there'd be a next time for sure, we'd come prepared to rumble. Running away was our best strategy this time, so run we did. My head pounded with my hoof beats as we covered ground at a steady pace set by Spot. Our little ray of Sunshine kept up without strain, in spite of his ugly wound. A real trooper that one and not all pastel beauty. Heero remained alongside Goldie, who I'd seen lagging behind, favoring his left leg, so I guess he'd been hurt worse than he looked. I hadn't given Howard a moment's thought, until we hobbled into the arena, braids undone, muddied. I just knew the groom would go bonkers when he got a load of my tail- The humans were all over us, shouting, poking. "What a rush, eh?" Heero nodded my way, nostrils flaring, eyes shining. "Yes. We weren't at all prepared for them." "Wily critters," Spot muttered. "We'll get even next time," I crowed, cocksure of myself. I watched Howard pull a sprig of blue flowers out of a tangle of mane, then examine it out of Trowa's bite range. It did smell tasty. "We need a proper strategy before leaving and the appropriate tactics going in." Sunshine said over his shoulder as a stable boy pointed out his wound to Howard. "Who put that flower in Trowa's mane?" Goldie had a wild accusing gleam in his eye. I wouldn't have answered him. Our little ray of Sunshine did, though. "I thought it was pretty there." The gleam darkened and blinked out. Goldie's eyes shown like the bottom of my pail, flat and deadly. Well, not exactly deadly. More empty. "Howard," he snapped and we all jumped, "can infer where we've been from that." "Oh! I didn't think-" "Shhh! Now he's calling the vet," Goldie said, and then nearly fell back on his haunches when a handler prodded at his dark meat, his thigh. "Ugh! I fell on that, you stupid man!" "I really didn't mean to give us away." "Of course you didn't," Spot told him. "And I'm so sorry! Really!" Goldie hissed at us. "Silence! I'm trying to listen to what they say." What they were saying, it turned out, was that they were going to put better locks on the gate. And they were upset because they'd lost track of where we'd gone. Big deal. "No problemo." "Howard said something about a 'chain and keyed padlock'," Goldie went on. "Or electric." How could an electric fence do anything but light up? "No fence can keep me corralled." "Hush! Something else is wrong. And the vet's arrived." We didn't get to hear about it until that evening after Sunshine had shots and treatment for his injury and Goldie had ointment and heating pads for his Charley horse. We'd all been curried and fussed with and fed and locked into our stalls as if it were night. "I'm opening doors," I announced for all to hear. "Just you hang fire, er, wait a bit." That was Spot's voice next door. "Why?" "They work on a schedule. Five minutes more and this man comes in and hangs up his keys and leaves. That's when the new guy comes on, but that one's almost always late so we might have half an hour before he comes and locks you up again, if Howard's in a mood." "What kinda mood?" "Upset enough to keep us penned up, which he might, considering." "Considering what? What did we do?" "I don't know. Sunshine feels he's upset, that's all." Okay, so humans were Nervous Nellies. Why should we stay stalled up? I waited a bit, and sure enough the stable boy popped in, hung up his keys, and left the barn. "Cool." "That's me." Spot nickered, but so did Sunshine, and I didn't think it was all that funny. Those two just had too much fun together. I let everyone out, noting that Heero hadn't said a word for a long time. Goldie walked a little stiff-legged, but claimed he was "just fine." "Apparently, the excitement had to do with that Relena woman," Goldie reported. "She'd been pestering Howard and had demanded Heero back again. I didn't hear word if there had been a 'court order' or not." So, Heero must have recognized her name being bandied about and had gone all broody over her. That explained his silence. "Howard doesn't want to break up our herd and he reminded Relena that her uncle stables mares and has no place for a stallion. But he's worried she'll find a way." "Where's there's money, there's a way," Heero grumbled under his breath. Okay, I guess the events of the day just added up and Heero's attitude took me over the top. Just like that, he was gonna abandon me. I lit into him, humans, and the world at large. "NO!" I stomped my hooves and shook my mane, just plain furious at him. "No way are you gonna just chuck up the sponge, throw me overboard, and forfeit the game!" "Heero, did you really swallow a sponge?" For a brilliant spot of Sunshine, my buddy seemed a bit dim. Must have been the injection that had dumbed him down. "There's no sponge," I explained mercifully under control, though I could feel my pulse pounding along my neck. "I was just saying he gave up the fight." "Heero wouldn't throw you over anything- a fence, bored... board or otherwise." "How do you know that, Spot? But that's now what I said or meant anyway. Geez! What's with you guys? Can't you understand plain talk?" "Not yours." Goldie slid that in between munching his hay. Before I could argue back, Heero decided to enter the conversation. "You think this is all a game between us?" Heero blindsided me with that one, for sure. "Game?" Oh, yeah, I'd said he'd "forfeited the game", which he'd taken literally like the rest of them. "No! And I'm not giving up hope either!" "You need a Duo-dictionary." Goldie just couldn't mind his own business and stay outta my face and out of my arguments with Heero. "What do you mean by that?" And, yeah, I was getting snappish by this time. "Maybe you all should just hobble your lips and shut up." "Hobble your own, Spot." Oh, yeah, then Sunshine stepped forward to shed his brand of light on the subject, and stamped his shiny, little hoof. "Oh dear! Stop fighting, please. Duo's right." "Damned straight I am." "What we must do is come up with a plan." "Devise a clever way to keep Heero here and outsmart the humans," Goldie said. "That shouldn't be hard." Heero blew a puff of air warning the cat creeping up behind me to high-tail it outta there. "You think I haven't tried?" "There's nothing we can't do if we put our heads together-" "Time's up, Beautiful," Spot said. "Changing of the guard." Goldie let out a loud snort and turned away in the direction of his stall. "Yes, make the humans think we are cooperating fully with the current incarceration." Not that we'd done anything wrong. We'd just taken in the nice spring day, gone for stroll, and paid our neighbors a visit. I guess the wild horse land was off limits to us and was going to be MADE off limits with impenetrable gates. Well, I wanted a second chance at those horses. Show them some manners. And I wanted to save Heero from Relena's clutches. A tall order in the thinking department, but I had all evening and night to do it. More than enough time. (o) And yet, when the sun rose over the ridge, I hadn't come up with a miracle plan to solve my problems. Nor had anyone else, by the way. Heero moped in the corral. Let him sulk. He and I hadn't talked the night before, just kept to ourselves. He could just stew in his juices, stubborn horse. I had had Percy for company in my stall, which, in the light of morning, I think that had as much to do with his mood as anything else. Sunshine and Goldie were penned in their stalls, or the "infirmary" as the gold horse called it. Funny guy with all the labels. That left the circus show-off and me to check out the replacement gate latches. Spot looked the new-fangled lock over and backed away. "Now that's complicated." "Yeah, no kidding. Gate's all chained and there's a metal lock with no mechanism to finagle with. I could bite at the clip before, but this one's got nothing to move. Just a hole." "And what's this wire for-? Hey!" Spot shook his head and looked up, stunned, and curled back his lips. "Watch it. That line above the wood. It's powerful hot." "Oh? Wow, there is such a thing as an electric fence. We can't ask 'Ro to kick it in with that wire." "Or jump the fence." I hadn't thought of jumping the fence. I wasn't a jumper. "Look here." His nose followed the wire down an upright and into a cable in the ground. "It goes down and it's gone." "Heh, heh, cool. We could dig at it?" I was thinking "destroy the thing." "Not safe. I barely touched it and got stung." "You okay?" "Better. Lip's numb, that's all." "Right. Well, so the hot wire only goes near the gate here. That means if we can't go through it-" "We go over. That will take some training, you know." Trowa stared at me, his voice serious. "You got to clear the fence. If your hoof catches, you can break a leg and then the jig's up, game's over." "Yeah. Well, Heero likes the hurdles. I can do it with practice." "Good. Want to shin out and tell the others?" "Missing your patch of Sunshine already?" I meant it as a joke, but I think I traumatized the bejeebies out of him. White ringed his eyes. "Hey, I was just shootin' my mouth off." But that didn't do the trick. He was still standing there staring at me. "You think it's a secret, what you got going with your stall-buddy? It's okay. I miss Heero, even though he was a horse's ass today, and last night." "Stall buddy, yeah." He shed his tension with a full-body shiver and we turned back to home. "You don't think it's wrong, um, to feel the way I do about him?" "Not wrong for you, obviously, or him. Why would you care? It's just the five of us." And he had to have noticed how close Heero and I had been. Had been. Ugh, had to fix that- mend that fence. No good having a mad-on with 'Ro. His low voice interrupted my roaming thoughts. "I've never known stallions to go for other stallions, that's all." Spot's head swung away; his tail flicked nervously, making me think about my own all tied up in a double braid and completely worthless for swatting flies. "Sometimes I think I'm an odd stick." "If you are, we all are, heh, heh. Aw, don't worry. He's crazy about you," I told him. It wasn't a secret either. "Absolutely hoof over tail for you, and I never lie." "It astounds me." "Yeah, well, wish me luck making good with our leader." "Good luck. He's had an eye on you all the time we've been talking, so he must want to make up. It shouldn't take much to get him to back down from whatever he thinks you did wrong." "You think? I hope so. I didn't really do anything wrong. I've mostly forgotten whatever it was anyway. If I can just get him to stop the rough horsing around, I'd be happy. He's heavy." "Horsing around? Oh, that. Um. He's not liable to stop that. You should ask him about it." "I like games as much as the next stallion, don't get me wrong, but when I try and turn it around? Wowzer, does he get pissed." "You tried to, ah, mount him? Don't do that." "Believe me I won't again. Wild horses couldn't make me try that again-okay, maybe those wild horses we just met, but no others. I don't fancy another power struggle with 'Ro, such as it was. No, sirree." "Speaking of Heero-" Spot lowered his voice to clue me in as to how close we'd gotten to him, and then he sorted peeled away to let me take the brunt of Heero's appraising glare. "Hey, fearless leader. We got news." We, or I, since what remained of Spot was his south end as he headed north, told Heero about the new lock and electric fence and our idea about jumping it. Heero was all gung-ho for jumping fences and was ready to visit the arena immediately for practice. "I'm checking on Beautiful, first," Spot told us over his shoulder. That left me with Heero and a giant gap in the conversation. Which he was leaving up to me to fill. "Um, sorry." It seemed as good a place to start as any. "For what?" Good question. "For getting my feelings hurt when you pretty much said there was nothing you could do to keep Relena from claiming you? I dunno." "I'm sorry, too," he said. "One day I'm promising to do everything I can to remain here and the next I'm pessimistic. Do I have any power over my fate?" "Ya gotta hope." "I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave you. It's just... my experience with people is that they get what they want and we are their possessions to do with as they like. Short of running away with you, I don't know what we can do." "Just don't give up, that's all I ask, 'Ro. We will think of something and if not, I'll run away with you." That silly notion was met with a snort. But then his nose touched mine and his neck curved around mine. I licked his nearest ear, so soft and delicate, and he nickered, a comforting, happy sound. "Life's not worth a shit without you." I believed it when I said it, too. "I love you, too." From the way he said it, I think I'd amused him with my rougher version. We snuggled in the corral, breathing in the fine, fresh air and soaking up a few rays. The wind stirred our loose hair, bringing us the scent of lovely growing things. "You know what they're doing, right?" No, I had no idea who or what. "Who?" "Trowa and Quatre." Oh, that. Sure, Spot liked Sunshine. Dappled Sunshine, heh, heh. "Snuggling?" He sighed. "More than that. Trowa told me, confided in me, that Quatre lets him, ah, treat him like a mare sometimes." Yeah, yeah... big deal. I nipped Heero's neck, a love-bite. "You push me around, too." He sighed larger. "That's not the part I meant." Oh. "You jump me, too, which, by the way, is pretty one-sided on your part and not as fun a game as you might think." He drew a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly. What had I said this time? "My point is that I just climb on. Trowa does more." "Oh, he does, does he?" That sounded way to up close and personal for me, and I wasn't particularly fond of Heero sharing our intimate encounters with my bud Spot, if he had. "And you and him talked about us ...it... this, ah, stuff ?" He sighed another long, gigantic sigh. "No, they are just an example. You don't understand what I'm talking about, do you?" "Mebbe." Actually, I didn't have a clue, but from the way Heero was talking around the subject all anxious-like, I got the feeling it was kinky-weird and I wasn't going to like it. "Depends on what you're not talking about, doesn't it?" And then he whispered an alarming (ALARMING!) suggestion in my ear. I scooted away, fleeing to the barn and arena, where Spot was pushing a pile of straw around, waiting for us. I did not want to think about what Heero'd said. Certain body parts just did not belong inside certain other ones, or fit! Not Spot! And certainly not Sunshine! I quickly came to the conclusion that Heero had been just pulling my leg, and pushed the idea out of my mind by the time he joined us. I tried to laugh it off, but when he didn't meet my eyes, it got me to wondering again why he'd made up a thing like that to tell me. Hurdles. Time to work on fence jumping, and get my mind off horses' asses. Didn't work very well, considering. (o) That night I discovered the locks on our stalls had been changed during the day. The top half of the Dutch door swung open, but the lower half remained locked in place. I couldn't see why. "What the heck is wrong with the door? I got it unlatched but it's still stuck." "I heard drills today," Sunshine commented, his voice faraway so he must have been lying down and behind his door. Drills? A sudden, unsolicited vision featuring Spot rearing up behind Sunshine thrust itself to the forefront of my brain. Ugh! "No, no, no, no, no! Must trample thoughts." "What was that, Duo?" I shook the image out of my mind, telling him, "Nutin'," and leaned over the top door, stretching my neck to its fullest. There it was: a gleam of metal at the very bottom edge. "Aw, Howie, how could ya?" "What's the matter?" Heero asked in a hollow-sounding voice, flat of emotion, behind his door. Without me to open the latches, they were all stuck in place until a human came by. Good. He'd messed with my head, putting very vivid thoughts there that hadn't been thought of before, at least by me. I pushed them far, far away, again. "Duo? Are you there?" "Yeah, yeah... Howard had someone put a slide latch on the outside of the stall-at the bottom! Out of my reach! Now, even when the top half is open, I can't reach the latch- no horse's neck is THAT long." I could hear Spot muttering next door. "My neck's not that long, Beautiful, and I may be acrobatic, but my lips aren't that agile-" And then I heard a lot of snuggling sounds from the luxury stall. Ugh. I couldn't help but hear Heero's words again, putting new pictures to the sounds I heard. What Heero'd told me sounded painful and awful, but my two friends sounded happy. Oh, Heero, why did you tell me about that? He wasn't doing that to Sunshine. No! Perverted thoughts go! I wanted OUT of my stall- NOW! Spot and his ray of Sunshine had each other, and were happy. Happy thoughts. What did they care if they ever got out? 'Ro was walled off from me. I really missed him, despite his pervy suggestions. Maybe because of them-? NO! Absolutely not. I missed his warm hide next to mine and his composed conversation. Yes. I missed that and wanted out. Goldie was probably perfectly content with the arrangement, as if he required suffering to complete his day. "Make my blanket extra scratchy under my saddle and cinch up my saddle uncomfortably tight, would you? Torment is good for the soul and hones a pissy edge to my personality." Which reminded me of a song I'd heard coming from the talking box of my previous owner. I sung my version. "A horse is a horse of course, of course. And no man can talk to a horse, of course. Unless, of course, the horse, of course, is the Golden Dragon 'Fei!" "Shut up!" came in a chorus of horse voices, so I couldn't pin it on just his estimation of my singing. Bor-ing. Why didn't me and 'Ro getta shared suite? How did I not qualify? No fancy chest of finery? Just 'cause I didn't come with a bag of gold, just 'cause I wasn't a scared-of-the-dark-weenie like Sunshine. The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I became. "Stop kicking the door." "Ro, it's not fair. I wanna be with you, not in here alone." "Why don't you call for the stable boy to open your door?" "Very funny." But then, as I thought about it, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. I could annoy the help. Even if it didn't solve the problem, there was the consolation that I freaked out the staff. I let out one ear-splitting whinny and had an annoyed cat at my door. "Sorry, Percy. I just want out." "Are you talking to that cat?" "Yes, Heero, I am. Oh, hold on. Hey, Percy? Nice kitty." I jiggled the door and the new bottom latch clattered, and in the most coax-alicious tone ever I asked, "Can you slide that open?" He rubbed up against the door and purred to wake the dead. He was free and happy. So unfair to gloat over his freedom at me. "Remember who-all takes care of you." "You'd better be joking," Heero grumbled. Yeah, yeah... He was not helping my cause. Percy showed me his rear end. "Dude, you are crude and insulting," I told him, just as Heero's whispered proposition slammed my brain again. Egad! What a dirty mind I had now! I hung out my head as far as possible, and aimed my voice towards the far end. "Hey, Goldie, er, Wufei! Ask Percy to lend me a paw, okay? Um, if you're still speaking cat, that is." His voice muffled by the distance and the wood walls and doors wasn't going to do the trick, though. I could tell that Percy wasn't hearing him or that he was pretending not to hear him and that Wufei wasn't really trying to be heard, uncooperative bastard. Like I guessed, he languishing away his time in his lonely stall, masochistically pleased to be miserable, especially knowing I had to put up with it, too. The cat sat licking his white paw and flicking his tail over the new latch. The tease. I could tease, too. I turned around and lifted my tail over the lower door. Swish. Swish. I knew Percy couldn't resist it. "I'll let you play with it, if you let me out." "No, you won't!" I ignored Heero and continued to swish my sexy, braided rope of a tail. When I felt a claw catch hold, I yanked my tail back, dislodging the claw and irritating Percy. "Me-ow!" I stuck my head over. "Aren't you clever enough to figure out that lock?" Percy understood me just fine, even if I didn't talk cat. He ran a paw over the metal, sliding the mechanism just a tad, then looked aside, in the direction of Heero's stall, from whence came more irritated demands. "That's mine. You can't share your tail with that...that creature." "It's actually attached to my tailbone, last I saw, or felt," a comment that won me a snort from the other side of the stall. "Nice attachment-last I saw." Good thing he couldn't see me trying to swallow my lips. What a thing to say! There was a crap-load of implication imbedded in those few words. Percy stood to go. Oh, no you don't! I eyed the cat and told him, "This is between you and me, amigo." Percy blinked his eyes. "You aren't indebting yourself to that animal, are you? Du-o!" Oh, Heero, for the love of- "Just a deal for services rendered." "I don't like that." Sorry, 'Ro. "No biggie." "It will smell of cat." Percy grinned like only a self-righteous cat can do and pushed back the latch with a flick of his paw. The door opened. He moseyed past my nose and claimed my tail, batting it like crazy until it bopped him in the nose, at which point he buried his claws deep in the braid and hung on. I don't think he knew how to let go. He just hung on and I dragged him out of the stall. "What's going on?" "I'm opening your door," I told Heero. "I'm talking about that caterwauling." "Oh, you mean Percy. He'll be hanging around a bit more than usual." And, no, Heero wasn't pleased with Percy snuggling in my tail that night, but he understood a deal was a deal and shut up about it, because I'd invited him to share my stall. To snuggle. Just snuggle. Nothing more. I quickly wiped those other thoughts clean out of my head, for the most part, and Heero didn't bring up the topic. The deal with Percy held up for a few days, and all was well again, until Howard tried a new locking technique. "There's a timer on it." "Thanks, Spot, I know that. What does it mean, is my point?" "It has a 'sniffer'." "A what?" Heero's addition to the conversation had me stymied. "That's what it says on the box. It's too far away for me to turn it over and learn more." Percy, bless his wretched little soul, appeared like an unwanted fly. He even buzzed, or hummed, or purred. "Hey, little buddy! Can you give this box to the nice, big horsey next door? Yeah, that one next to the garbage-No, don't shred it! I'll, uh, what would he like, Heero?" "Hn." "C'mon! Whatta cats like besides my hair?" "Why doesn't Quatre negotiate with it? It's his nuisance pet." "Because he's busy doing whatever it is he and Spot do in there. I'm the one that wants out. Just gimme one thing? Please?" "Mice." "Cool. Percy, I'll bring you a mouse from the pasture-" "Alive, for the most part," Heero thoughtfully added. "Not dead, quite. How's that sound? Just give the pretty, big, brown horsey the box." And, no, Heero didn't like being called that and, no, Percy somehow finagled promises for two not-quite-dead mice outta me, but finally he carried the empty cardboard lock box to Heero and pushed it into his stall through the narrow space under the door. "What'sit say?" "Time-locked deadbolt. If smoke is detected, they open automatically." "Time...locked? What do you think that means?" "It means you aren't getting us out." "He-ero!" Spot blew air past his lips to get my attention. "You gotta idea?" I asked him. "It means there's a clock inside, like I said I saw, and it's set to unlock at a certain time-and no sooner- so pull in your horns and quit looking for trouble." "Essentially what I said." "Thank you, Heero." Now I got to thinking about how I could get past that kind of security. I couldn't very well crush it with a hoof. It was outside the stall. There were no openings to ram a stick into and fiddle around. I thought and I thought but I had no idea what to do. I couldn't believe I'd been bested by a little clock in a lock. Tick, tick, tick... Not me. So, once again I resorted to the lowest sort of manipulation. I drew a deep breath and whinnied my brains out. I'd exact revenge if nothing else. I did it again and again and again. Every few minutes. I had nothing else to do and plenty of energy, lung power, and determination-and voice, too. "Gimme outta here!" I hollered at the top of my lungs. I got my point across, because sometime later (Spot told me I kept it up for one and one half hours) Howard came storming in, red-faced and shouting at me. Apparently (Goldie told me I'd "annoyed" him) he wanted me to stop. Whatever. It worked for me, because he let us out to roam the barn and arena all night, had we wanted to, but the exterior doors were left closed, locked with the same mechanism. The problem was I didn't really want to have to go to that much trouble every night to get us out. "He's doing it for our safety." "How so, Goldie? We were free before and nothin' bad happened to us?" "His concern was not for our escaping so much as for robbers breaking in and stealing us, or, most probably, Relena stealing Heero." Well, when he put it that way I could understand. "The security's for Heero then?" Sunshine nodded vigorously. "Howard felt more worried than angry to me, Duo." "Well, shit." "I don't want the rest of you to pay for what amounts to my fault." The whole gang joined me in correcting him. "It's not your fault!" "Mee-ow!" "Percy has a thought," Goldie interpreted for us. "It will cost us all." Oh. Already, I was sharing my tail and had promised two mice (Percy insisted that was two per day that we went outside, Goldie clarified when he had a chance) - What more was I getting in for? "I say it depends on whether this 'thought' of his amounts to a solution." That's a good one, 'Ro. Percy and Goldie scratched out a payment plan, mostly in secret but which amounted to rides on Spot's back, one of Sunshine's silk scarves to line his bed, mice from Heero, my tail and something unsaid, but possibly evil, from Goldie. We all agreed, if it worked. He leaped from the ground to the edge of my open half door and balanced himself above the lock. There he sat poised. And then he peed on the device, which ticked once, twice, then ceased its incessant marking of time. A puff of smoke and there it was short-circuited, the latch opened on default. Cool. Actually, we took care of the other locks ourselves in varying positions and buckets of pee. After that, the individual stall locks were removed and we were allotted our freedom. To a point. At night we were restricted indoors. During the day, we could venture out, but the gates leading out of our facility were impenetrable. We could go into our corral to our pasture, but not the wild lands, not yet. We had our hurdle training to perfect first. And our plans to best the Mustangs. And somehow protect Heero. And just when that seemed like enough in our hay bins, our universe tilted on its axis again. Horse Notes: Wild horse community. All wild horses live off the land, grazing, never a predator and always the prey. In order to escape predators, horses have evolved extreme sensitivity and speed. Also for safety reasons, they are social herd animals that follow a leader and conform to a dominance hierarchy in harems dominated by the strongest stallions. A dominant stallion owns the herd and sires all the herd's offspring. His role is to keep intruders and predators away from his mares. When you see a group of wild horses moving across the landscape, normally the stallion will be running behind the herd, keeping the slower horses moving and protecting the group from attack. Usually the band has a dominant mare responsible for leading the family group in their grazing. She will lead the family to the water hole, to the mineral lick where they dig for dietary supplements, and guide them to sheltered places out of the wind when winter storms howl.
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