Hatred
I found myself in a pen, with high walls, so high that I could not see over them, even if I reared so high I almost teetered backwards. The pen had no corners; it was a perfect circle, perhaps twelve big trot strides across. 1 The walls were not solid, but sturdy, and there was a breeze coming in though the openings between the boards. As I investigated my surroundings, I found a tub of water and a pile of hay. I could smell men near by, but I could not see them. My hoofed friends, with the fear of men that I now had, would have been nervous for hours or days. I was smarted than them. I knew that the men could not touch me if they weren't actually in there with me. So I drank water, and munched on the grass hay, but I always kept an eye and ear on the look out. I absently wondered what had happened to my herd mates. I called to them, and received distant whinnies in response.
I could spend any amount of time describing what I went through, what I thought, and how I managed to convince the horsemen that I was insane, un-trainable, and dangerous, even though I wasn't. Oh, I suppose that is incorrect. I wasn't insane, but I was dangerous. I reacted to all the training methods with anger and hatred, convinced that even if the humans weren't going to kill me and put me on the table of this King Théoden they kept talking about, they were just trying to fool me into giving up my independence and freedom. I felt like a slave. But I was still rather young and insolent. If I had been human, I would have hated my parents because they told me what to do….
But that isn't the point; the point is that I earned the name 'Firefoot' because I never tolerated a particular human long enough for them to touch me with out sedatives. I would charge, kick, bite, or some combination of the above. To their credit, the humans tried their hardest. They tried every method in the book short of violence. They knew a horse that had to be beaten to tolerate humans was not a horse they wanted to trust their lives to in battle. Needless to say, if I were a normal horse that thought like horse, their methods would have produced a willing, smart, trustworthy mount. But, as you will no doubt get tired of hearing, I am not a normal horse.
One day, after having successfully convinced what could have been the hundredth trainer that he really, really didn't want anything to do with me the week before, I heard them coming again with yet another trainer. I was surprised that they found someone so quickly. After all, almost every person around the capital, and some from farther away, who had been around horses in the last 50 years had taken a stab at me. The record for the longest stay was 64 days. My personal best was when I managed to make an apprentice runaway in sixty seconds flat. Anyways, they were rapidly running out of people who were willing to risk working with me when I wasn't heavily drugged. Last time it had taken a month to find a replacement.
"Lord Éomer, yer this un's last hope," said the particularly brave stable boy who could toss me hay and give me water without getting badly injured.
"How's that, boy?" asked the youth who had to be Lord Éomer. He looked no more than seventeen or eighteen.
"If ye can't fix 'im, they'll 'ave to kill 'im, 'cause ain't nobody kin teach 'im nufin', an' he jest takin' up space an' eatin' food, an' he aint even happy," the boy replied.
It took Éomer a while took work that one out. When he did, he said, "Well then! We shall just have to see what we can do with him, then." With that, he entered walked to the fence of my round pen. "How are you doing, Firefoot?"
Still mulling over the fact that maybe the humans didn't necessarily want to wash their hands of me, I missed the chance to land a solid kick on the fence near his head, my standard greeting. Unfortunately, he decided it was safe to enter, despite the small boy's avid protests. As soon as he finished climbing through the fence and reached the center, I began to rear and scream and buck around him. Stupid, stupid human! You are all the same! Take me from my herd; expect me to bend to your will! I should kill you all. Stupid, ignorant, not one of you understands!
"I know you think we are all stupid, and you miss the open fields, but really, violence isn't the answer," Éomer said, speaking as one who talks to horses as he would a man just because he is in the habit. I faltered. Had he understood me? No one ever understood me.
You men, fight wars when you are wronged! You kill, you maim, and you used violence!
Éomer continued, "Yes I know humans go off and fight wars, but we really don't like to. We only fight for our survival. You, on the other hand, fight just because you have an unexplainable hatred of Mankind."
At this point, I was beginning to strongly suspect that something enabled him to understand me, or at least, understand concepts. He probably didn't realize they were coming from me, they probably felt like they came from his own mind, or perhaps from my body language, not my head but still, I resolved to see where this would go. Hopefully I could teach him to listen, not just talk as men are prone to doing.
1 Going on Firefoot being a fairly large horse, his big trot strides would be about a maximum of five feet, and he is young and undeveloped, so he probably actually has smaller strides. He is in a round pen of about 60ft, or about 18.2 meters. And before some natural horsemanship person gets after me about them not having round pens, round pens are not new. The ancient Greeks had them, I think. The Romans defiantly had round pens. Quite useful things when it comes to working with horses….
