Chapter 6:Now What?

Stunner sighed to herself. Tired from her race though she was, she knew she would have to her the annoying protests of her dam and sire. The very thought exhausted her physically and emotionally and made her snort in frustration, unfortunately giving away the fact that she wasn't asleep when she was supposed to be. At three hours before dawn, the timing was unusual for a horse to be awake. At least that's what she thought, although she quickly reminded herself that she didn't care.

"Why are you awake?"

Stunner groaned inwardly as she realized that the stallion next to her now knew that she had awakened at this ungodly hour. Pasting a fake smile on her face that probably would have convinced anyone else, Stunner replied, "Just thinking of how excited I still am after my first race."

Unfortunately...the smile didn't fool the handsome buckskin at all. He knew her too well.

"What's going on Stunner? You know you can tell me, if no one else," the stallion said sternly, but not loud enough to rouse the other sleeping inhabitants of the stable. Stunner averted her gaze, lowering her rose-colored eyes to the ground. "It's just...my sire and dam. I don't know what they'll say or do after I went against them so many times in the past days, and if it comes to the worst...I just don't want to be taken away again."

Stunner buried her head into the stallion's neck as he embraced her, allowing her to shed her tears on him. As with what happens to many, Stunner cried herself back to sleep, and stayed asleep until her owner attached a lead rope to her halter a few hours later. As she passed, Stunner gazed momentarily at the stalls her sire and dam occupied regularly, only to find them empty. 'Oh joy. They beat me to the pastures, and now they're going to kill me with words. I'm scared,' Stunner mused to herself. Though, in reality, she truly was scared.

"Ah! Stunner, over here!" exclaimed Mona, the bay appaloosa mare that Stunner called friend. Stunner couldn't help but smile at Mona's always-positive-and-hyper attitude. Striding over to her friends, Stunner clearly noticed that her stallion-friend was missing. Immediately becoming suspicious, Stunner asked, "Where's Oberon?"

Shadow, a tall black stallion with a shiny and well kept sorrel mane and tail and four sorrel stockings (Stunner always thought of him as being a "reverse bay" kind of color), was the only one who answered her, though rather reluctantly it seemed. "He's being interrogated."

'Interrogated? By whom?' Stunner pushed the though aside and settled for a reply less prodding and straightforward. "Last time I checked, no one had anything to interrogate Oberon about. Is there something I should know that I haven't yet been told?"

The only reply the palomino received was four heads turning away from her. Frustrating and suspicious.

"Okay, spill. What's going on?" Stunner demanded. Screw going around the problem, she wanted to know what the heck was making her friends act the way they were. Dream Arrow, who had been the only friend she had been allowed to see during her foreign show-jumping training, spoke for everyone. "Well, um, you see, Oberon hasn't been getting along well with his dam. And she wants him bred to Lilac, thinking they'll make a great race foal." Lilac, Stunner remembered, had been a huge flirt when they were foals. Her pursuit of Oberon hadn't faded when she was separated for training. 'Lilac? Ha! Any stallion that even moves in her direction will be in for a BIG disappointment!,' Stunner thought. Sighing in exasperation, she stalked off toward where she knew Oberon would be. Unfortunately, her worst fear blocked her path. Standing directly ahead of her was her dam. And judging from the way she stood...she wasn't happy.

"Stunner. Come here for a moment please." called out Stunner's dam, the strawberry roan mare known as Red Pegasus. Stunner saw her mother saying please as a bad sign that something horrid was going to happen. 'I'm so screwed.'

Keeping up an emotionless expression, Stunner walked towards her mother with her head held high and her eyes closed. "What do you need? I don't have time to spare being interrogated and lectured by you or my sire. So make this quick." Stunner sighed out. "Don't you dare speak to me that way! I am your mother and I gave you life, so you'd best listen closely you ungrateful filly!" snapped Pegasus. Unfazed by her dam's snappy attitude, Stunner retorted,"So what if you did give me life!? I don't owe you anything because I didn't ask for the life you gave to me, it was your decision to have me and Nature's choosing of whether or not I be born! So don't start preaching to me about how I owe you my life...Pegasus."

Pegasus stepped back in utter shock at her own foal's harsh words. Never, in her many years of life, had the strawberry roan ever been spoken to like how Stunner had just spoken to her! "If that is how you truly feel my daughter...then race. You have shown me that I cannot hold you to the life I expected of you, and that...only the winds of Fate can direct you to the path it desires of you. You have my blessing," with that said, Pegasus stalked off from her only foal with her head low and her pride stung. Stunner kept her back turned and her tears only barely suppressed.

"Hey."

Stunner tensed as she prepared to spring from where she stood as the large black stallion with the white blaze strode up to her with his head held high in what Stunner knew too well to be a flirtatious manner most stallions used to attract the mare they were attracted to. To the rose-eyed palomino, it was just another useless waste of muscle strength. Thoroughbreds weren't bred to hold their heads that high. Obviously Rhubarb didn't know that. "What do you want? I've already had a bad enough day without you and your little band of fools trailing me and my friends," Stunner snapped. Rhubarb only snorted in reply. "Come, now! I mean no harm in walking up to you, so you needn't be so snappy with me," Rhubarb commented with the same smug look on his face that Stunner saw almost every time she encountered him. Deciding it would be best for the both of them if she didn't say anything, Stunner only turned her back on him and walked away. The thundering of hooves behind her didn't catch her attention, until she realized it was only Shadow, Dreamy, Mona, Blaze, and Oberon.

"Oh, Stunner! Is it true? Is your owner really planning to breed you and Oberon!?" Dreamy asked in her usually hyper voice. Stunner gasped and stared at Oberon, daring him to tell her what this was all about and whether or not it really was true. Oberon had a stern, serious look on his face, but he said nothing. The expression her stallion-friend held was proof enough for her. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. "Yeah I, uh, guess it is true," Even though everyone neglected to tell me. But what about...?

"Oh yeah! What about you sire and dam, Oberon? Didn't they want you to take Lilac as your mate?" Stunner asked. Oberon looked surprised, but replied, "Oh. That. I told them off in more of a harsh way than I should have."

After that, everyone turned their heads in a different direction with expressions Stunner only knew as regret, pain, sadness, and guilt. So they aren't getting along well with their families either. At least I'm not alone...although I don't want them to suffer.

Suddenly, there was smoke and fire, and rain and lightning. Stunner, Oberon, and the others ran as fast as their legs would allow them, and kept going all the way to the opposite fence which was far too close to the bright gold and red-orange flames that Stunner could almost swear licked at their legs no matter how fast they ran or how far. Allowing the small bit of jumper within her blood take over, Stunner pushed off of the ground with as much force as she could and sailed over the iron and wood rails. Looking back, Stunner noticed the many others in the fields following her lead, jumpers or not, it didn't matter. All that mattered was escaping and leaving behind that which was about to destroy them. Just as she prepared to continue running, Stunner halted and looked back, noticing a large group of foals trapped and unable to make it over the high beams of fence which only allowed the flames to edge closer to their tiny, defenseless bodies. Neighing to her friends, Stunner quickly rounded up the foals and, with the hep of many powerful stallions, including the few Clydesdales and Shires that inhabited the race track stables, shattered the wooden railings and allowed room for the foals to run. The many other escapees joined Stunner and her group, running behind them towards the further parts of the track lands to escape from their brush with death. With Oberon in the lead and the many others trailing behind with the foals in the middle.

After dawn, when the sun broke over the horizon and the night's mist began to settle and disappear, the horses made their way over to where the ashes of what used to be green fields and tall trees lay. Standing at the edge, Stunner and Oberon embraced each other, the sadness of the scene weighing heavily on both of them, as well as the others.

What would they do now? Without their home, and with no knowledge of what lay beyond the race track, how would the horses survive?

So Stunner thought, as did so many of the other survivors.....

Now what?