Disclaimer: I don't own it. I really don't. There is not a single original character in this yet. It all belongs to Tolkien. I'm not making any money from it, just entertainment. You know the drill.

Prologue

I am not your average person. In fact, I am not even a person, in the literal definition of the word. I am, physically at least, a horse. My brain however is not that of a typical equine. You see, I am caught between two worlds, two ways of thinking, two separate existences, for, my brain is more human than horse. I know not why I think different than my herd mates, why I alone could, even from an early age, understand the human race, not when men skilled in the art of horsemanship used their bodies to speak the horse-tongue, but when they spoke in their own tongue with one another. If horses like me ever existed, men never learned of them, and the horses would not remember. Horses do not concern themselves with the past, save that in the past this happened and it was good, or that happened and it was bad, or here is a good place to find water. They do not remember who did what, or why or when; it is not in their natures. But, I am getting ahead of myself. I am Firefoot, and this is my story.

(a/n: there should be a break here, but for the life of me I can't get it to work. oh well)

I was born in the stables of Edoras, sometime before the War of the Ring, as you humans call it. I was born in a large foaling stall bedded with straw, as most foals are. My first experience with men came within a few hours of my birth, in the time all foals have where they know no fear, so I did not come to fear men at that time.

When a foal is strong enough, they will be turned out in a large field with all the other mares and their offspring. In this field there were also older mares that had not foaled that year, and all sorts of other horses that, for whatever reason, were not kept in the stables and surrounding paddocks. This created a herd setting, wonderful in the upbringing of young foals. Because, young horses must learn how to act like a horse, they are not born knowing how to act in a herd setting. A horse raised away from other horses will be almost impossible for the humans to train, simply because humans learn to have a crude understanding of the horse language, and how can a human teach a horse that doesn't know the language the lesson is in. I too, learned the language of horses, but found it lacking. Was there no way to tell my dam of the extra juicy clump of grass I had just found? Or to ask how she managed to execute that perfect roll-back? 1 Nevertheless, I managed to live and grow in this herd setting.

I did not realize how very different I was, and how comparatively unintelligent the other foals my own age were until it was time to start training at the age of two years old. One day a shrill whistle blew as one often did, and just like every other time, the whole herd stopped what they where doing and ran toward the sound. I was bored with this routine; nothing interesting ever seemed to happen. But this time was different.

This time, the men separated the two year olds from the rest of the herd. There were a good many two year olds, so although every one was nervous, not a one panicked. They had mostly clumped together in the big field anyway. But I was busy thinking. Had the men ever taken a group way like this before? I couldn't remember. No, wait… yes they had done this before. Last year when I was just a yearling, too upset over being weaned to notice much, they had taken that year's two year olds, who would be three this year. And they hadn't come back. When this though came to me, I panicked. Something terrible could have happened to those horses. I remember never having been frightened of men before, but perhaps they didn't eat newborns. Perhaps they waited until they were older. Bigger. That was the first un-horse like thought I had that day

I threw my head up in the air, and smelt strange things. I performed that roll-back I had worked so hard to master, and ran back the way we had come, screaming to my brethren. Run, hoof-brothers, hoof-sisters! They took our older siblings from us last year, and now they want to serve us the same horrible fate! Run back to our uncles and aunts, back to our dams and their new foals! Run back to the herd!

My screams served to excite my peers, but not being able to understand words, only emotions and other such things, they only realized my panic. True to form they ran straight away from what had already made them nervous. That is to say, they ran away from the humans and ended up galloping in the direction the men had been herding us anyway. I, however, ran straight at the men with the intention of going back into the big field. I knew that it would be near impossible for the men to catch me in the big field, if I was determined to stay away from them. It was the second un-horse like thought had entered my head that day. Surprised, the men stood firm but did not have time to prepare themselves for my strange behavior. I bolted straight through the line, and returned to the field.

Unfortunately, the wooden obstacle that I had never bothered to think about before now blocked my escaped. I threw myself at the barrier, but made no made little headway. I did, however, succeed in bruising my forelegs. Soon I was surrounded by men. I lashed out with my hooves. I could hear the humans talking amongst themselves, or were they talking to me? Yes they were. "Easy", they were saying. "Calm down," they crooned. I stopped listening. Time flowed together in an endless stream of terror. The humans did not do any thing but encircle me, waiting. It was not in vain. Eventually, I stopped and stood, I could do nothing. I allowed myself to be herded off somewhere, to exhausted to care anymore. My life would never be the same again.

1 For those of you who don't know, a roll-back is a move used in western riding, where the horse, from a full canter or gallop, almost sits down, stops, pivots around 180° and takes off in the opposite direction. Yes, horses will do it on their own out in the pasture, if they are built the right way and it is easy for them.