AN: This is a story for you Kathyg and for al the Felipe and Toronado fans here. A story that will honor the friendship between human and horse.
A friendship I have being honored to feel myself, as my passion for horses and Toronado is well know under the people who read my storys or know me.
I hope all of you will enjoy it and don't worry Toronado will get his part in the next chapters see this as a little prologue.
This being said I wish you all a happy newyear, in hope of a year full of Zorro and full of new story's. That all your wishes may come true.
With lot of hugs and kisses
Ladytoronado1880.
Chapter 1
life isn't supposed to be easy. Everybody gets his amount of struggle and there amount of happiness.
Not everybody thinks like that but happiness can be found in the smallest of places. Sometimes it will show up if you think about the past.
Felipe's life was no exception, on the contrary his struggle started rather early in his life.
The August revolution was hard, many lives were taken and many more lives broken with loss.
On of those lives was a little boy, with dark hair and big, brown puppydog-eyes.
Those eyes were crying while the rest of the body only sat there, against the big three, in complete shock.
That day he lost everything he ever knew, his parents, his hearing and his ability to speak.
The struggle was not exception, but neither was happiness, a little light of hope appeared that same day.
God had sent him a guardian angel, the guardian angel of hope in the form of a tall young man, with kind blue eyes.
Something in that appearance showed trust, nothing stopped him for trusting his little life in the hands stranger, call it intuition.
They searched for days, trying to find his parents, Diego didn't know they were dead though, to find some other family or someone who knew the boy with no success.
Nobody knew him, nobody could take care of him, one more broken life was just to much for most families, orphanages were to busy for another mouth to feed.
No success in finding him a place to stay and with no heart to leave the frightend little boy on his own, he decided to take him back with him to Los Angeles.
As time passed on, Felipe, that's what they named him, grew out to be a servant more than worthy to work for the richest family in California. The shy little child was now a handsome young boy.
One would think that the struggle of life would back down now for Felipe, think again.
Surely the De La Vega's loved him, don Alejandro raised him himself.
Yes every servant knew how to read and how to write, but the old don assured that Felipe learned everything first hand, like he was sensing somehow that he would be family one day.
Looks could be desiving though.
The difficulties of communication were a big problem, the fact that he received special attention from there patron made some of them only more jealous of the little boy.
Don Alejandro and Maria were the only ones who understood the little boy, they were the only ones who made the effort of learning his signs and understanding him, especcially Maria, who was head of the household grew to love him like a son,the De La Vega cook never had.
So it's not that hard to believe what the boy had gone through in the four years without his guardian angel.
The support of Maria and the old don were the only things that kept him going, together with the hope to be able to serve the man who rescued him and took him.
That same hope made him strong and gave him the power to develop his gift from God.
A gift that would help him against injustice in the future, the gift of lipreading.
The communication went easier, the more he developed his gift, the jealousy stayed though.
There were moments of joy, the moments he received a letter from Madrid, this letter was no exception.
It would be the last letter before the return of don Diego De La Vega, his guardian angel.
Dear Felipe,
I much enjoyed the last letter you had sent me.
How is my father holding up? Knowing what he told me in his last letter, the things are becoming worse in Los Angeles.
This new alcalde is breaking everything the people worked so hard for.
I will need to see it with my own eyes though, he didn't write much details regarding the events that are happening, the only thing he wrote is that I leave for Californie immediatley.
So I will be home in few months from the day I write you this, probaly another 3 months if you are reading this.
You became my confidential adviser trough our letters that's why I want to ask you to continue to be that when I arrive home. I want you to be my personal servant and friend.
I said the same thing in a letter to my father, so if you have some questions you can go to him.
See you in a few months
Sincere
Diego.
It was like the miracle had start working already, the next morning something happened, something that made him panic and overjoyed in the same time.
For the first time in years he heard the singing of a bird, a bird that he remembered hearing in the early years of his life back in Guadalajara.
Overjoyed of the fact that he could hear again, in panic over something he had read on the lips of another servant.
He was treated better because he was a helpless fool, who would have no life otherwise.
He had made up his mind, nobody would know he regained his hearing. He wasn't going to risk losing don Alejandro's love and trust.
He would probaly think that he lied the whole time, not having an explanation himself of how his hearing regained.
That is what Felipe thought anyway.
No! It would be his secret, he was deaf most of his life it wouldn't be that difficult to fake.
Life went on, Diego returned home and became the masked defender, became his second father, a new friendship arrived, a friendship stronger than any he ever knew, a friendship between human and horse.
TBC...