Fairy tale Dark

”Tamlin!” He stopped instantly in front of her. Like a foal interrupted in his play. He glanced at the mayhem around him and for the first time he really saw what he had done to this little patch of land. The smell reached him too, as well as the sound of the buzzing flies. He gagged, barely able to keep his lunch down, and lowered his head in shame. The shaggy stallion watched Otem from under his tangled forelock as she worked on covering the rotting bodies of the strange looking critters. The smell improved with every patch of grass she grew, but she could not erase it fully - which she seemed to point out by asking how he could stand it. Tamlin lifted one of his front hooves which created a suction noise as it left the ground. He looked at the hoof and the slur of mud and blood that covered it - once more he had to fight to keep the content of his stomach down. He hurriedly put his hoof back down and shot a sideways glace at the autumn colored girl whom he had kind of filly-napped in a sense. Grown stallions whisking away little fillies to places of horror had to count as such, no?   “Well… I… I don’t… I” he mumbled, unable to explain himself. But Otem was already leaning over one of his creations and a sliver of his former excitement returned. He went over to her, hooves making those awful suckling sounds as he walked. “Oh, you do? I think it is native to the Edge, but I don’t quite recall.” Was it was native to the Edge. Tamlin could not shake the thought of his home this time - a sign that the drugs were wearing off. He could feel the frustration and anger creeping closer, ready to take over when the memories of the trauma returned. He looked to Otem, he ought to make her leave now, but somehow he did not want that. She was one of few he had spent any amount of time together with in several years and part of him knew that it was what he needed. If he ever wanted to be clean, he had to make meaningful connections, have horses around him that he was willing to quit for. Not that he had ever touched on the thought of quitting, but still. “Otem.” he said, ambiguous emotions in his voice. “Maybe it is time for you to go to your family now. A young girl should not be running around with strangers. I bet your father would beat me to a pulp if he found out I took you to this place.” It was easy to hear from his words that his mind was clearing. He sounded more sane and less like an overgrown child. But soon the irritation would come and the headaches and all those other feelings and emotions that made him into the beast Otem had met the first time. He did not want her to meet that Tamlin again and how ever strange it felt for him to actually care about someone else, it was what he did in that moment. No matter how backwards it was, the deadbeat stallion knew she had less to fear from him high than sober. Fucking hell, I should not be around children - that’s for sure!

IMAGE