Title: Connected
Prompt #15: Horses
Author: Maranwe
Rating: G
Disclaimer: recognizable characters, locations, etc., belong to their original creator. I make no money from the creation of this fic. It is intended for entertainment only.
A/N: If anyone's wondering where prompt #14 is: it's part of an incomplete mini-series featuring Thorongil. Rather than mix it in with these stand-alone prompts, I will (eventually, I hope) post it (and the rest of the mini-series prompts) as it's own story. On another note, I apologize for this random 1st person perspective. Aragorn is the speaker. Enjoy.

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I first saw him from a distance. Without being able to understand his cries, they yet called to me. I beheld his struggle. I beheld how they sought to bind him. I beheld his pain – soul deep. I beheld their waning patience.

Soon, something would break.

I had covered half the distance between me and the stables before I knew I'd told my feet to move. Something pulled me. What, I didn't know, just that he needed help and I could give it.

At the entrance to the stables, I waved the handlers – there were six, stout, fair-haired, surrounding him, pulling, yelling – I waved them back, waved them quiet. The Rohirrim have robust voices that serve them well, but their volume would not serve here.

"What is his name?" I asked. My heart whispered.

"Brego," someone answered. 'Brego,' my heart repeated. I knew him.

I understood his cries – understood why he plunged, lunged, reared, why he tossed his head, gnashed his teeth, rolled his eyes, pinned back his ears, threatened to kick. 'I lost my best friend!' he cried with every step. 'I lost him.' Every undulating cry past bared teeth declaimed it. 'You can't replace him!'

I felt his terror: to be pinned and saddled, strapped and sent to face that darkness again, without the one who had guarded his back. Staunch and steadfast men had quailed at less. I felt his urge to run.

"Brego, listen to me." Wide, wild eyes fixed on me. Even the handlers headed my call. "Be calm, friend."

I did not need to find the balance between soothing and strength. It sang through my blood, whispering 'we are alike,' and hummed under my words, 'I know your pain.'

"Easy, Brego." *I will not hurt you, will not hold you fettered when you would fly.* Smiled when he let me touch his face, stroke his nose. "Brego. That is a kingly name."

He whickered by my ear, pressed his nose into my palm. 'I know you.'

The bewildered men had back away. Lead lines had slipped from slack hands. They had watched as, against all sense, I removed the means for control – the bridle first, the ropes tossed over his neck, then, (my hand stroked down his back so he knew where I was) the girdle that bound saddle. All, I removed.

He had turned to me when the weight from the saddle disappeared. Back at his head, I had stroked his face, smiled as he lipped the sleeve of my overcoat. "Some of us were always meant to be free."

He had taken his freedom with leaps and bellows.

I did not understand that shared loss connected us that day. I knew it – long had my heart felt it, but not so strong that it threatened to rend the world and not just my heart. Standing now on the other side of the Paths of the Dead, the host of the Enemy slain or routed before us in defense of Minas Tirith, I feel that rent.

Here, I steal a moment and pay tribute to my cousin – my brother in heart – and wish someone could free me, from duty and destiny and the darkness that threatens us. But no one can. Others may be free. I can free them. But no one can free me. It is mine to face the darkness.

Behind me, a soft nose bumps my shoulder. A quiet whicker brushes my ears.