#korasso

“I’ll be back soon I promise!” You yelled to your father who watched you from the doorstep of Kora’s home. “I just have to deliver these to Rowan!” You showed him a bunch of papers in your hand. Rowan had you design some flyers for a trail ride, and now you were going to deliver them. You were already on your way to do the delivery, but you were stopped by your worried dad before you could even get on the trail to the ranger base. The man frowned he didn’t want you to go alone. Mistfall was dangerous there were wolves in the forest. Your father worried you might come across them. You also did not have a horse, if you got into trouble you would have to deal with it alone. He shook his head deciding it was best not to let you go “come back!” He yelled back to you. You were a bunch of feet away from him, so you both had to yell back and forth. “I am almost done talking to Kora! Wait for me and we can both go together!” Your father started walking towards you. You loved your dad you really did, but you also loved time alone. You walked to him as well, so you could speak and not yell. Once you got close to him you said “dad I can do it alone.” You wanted some alone time you hoped you could convince him to let you go. “I’ll be fine the ranger base is just down the road” you moved the papers in your hand towards the direction of the base. “If I get into any trouble, I can handle it alone” you grabbed your father’s hand giving it a comforting squeeze. “Go back inside and enjoy your tea with Kora I’ll be fine” you smiled when your dad squeezed your hand back. “Plus I’ve been around Mistfall many times and I have never seen a wolf” today would be no different. At least you hoped it wouldn’t. You brushed the thought away not wanting to accidentally manifest a wolf. “Can I go now?” You let go of your father’s hand. The man nodded, and you went wide eyed as he pulled you into a bone crushing hug. “Be careful” he said to you, and you managed to huff out an “I will!” Your dad was old you wondered where he got all that bone crushing strength. He was a druid his job did not require any psychical strength... Or did it? You didn’t really know what he did, he kept it all a secret from you. Maybe he was sneaking in some training sessions into his busy druid schedule to beat the shit out of Garnok himself. When your dad let you go, you took a deep breath in, and you said goodbye to him heading back to the trail. Your father headed back inside to speak to Kora leaving you alone. The walk to the ranger base was boring. You couldn’t use your phone it was low on battery, and you needed to save it. You looked around you trying to keep yourself entertained. You had seen all of Mistfall thousands of times. You had been up and down all the trails. The bad thing about having explored the whole forest was that there was nothing new to look at. You prayed to Aideen for something new. Maybe you should have allowed yourself to accidentally manifest a wolf. A nice wolf of course, so you don’t get mauled. As you walked you continued to look around. It did not take you long to notice that the forest was quiet. No birds were around. No rabbits or frogs either. No sounds as well. You were starting to feel uneasy. Why was the forest so quiet and still today? Your fear made your walk turn into a jog. You wanted to get to the ranger base quickly. It took a few minutes to get to the base and once you got there your fear grew as you saw that the base was empty. The lights were off, and the horses and people were gone. On the door you could see a paper taped to it. You walked over to the door reading the paper it said ‘Out investigating. Be back soon!’ You sighed wondering what to do. You needed to drop the papers off now while you were in Mistfall. You looked around for somewhere to put the papers. While you looked you thought about what the rangers were investigating. You heard some townspeople in Dundull say they heard an explosion last night. That same explosion was the reason why you and your father were in Mistfall.

When you asked your dad about it, he told you it was “classified druid business.” Whatever caused the explosion must be magical if your father was involved. You ended up finding a mailbox, and you neatly put the papers into it. You wished Rowan would have told you that they were going out. Maybe they could have picked the papers up from Kora’s house instead of making you come all the way out here. You reached for your phone in your back pocket. You were going to send Rowan a text saying you left the papers in the mailbox. When you touched your phone, you heard a shrill neigh. You stood still with your hand on your phone looking like an old timey western cowboy getting ready to draw. Did you imagine that neigh? You waited a few seconds, and you heard it again. It was coming from the trail leading to Wildwoods. The neighs echoed and bird calls followed after the neighs. You watched as birds quickly came flying out of the entrance. Rowan must be coming back now. You started walking down the trail to Wildwoods to meet Rowan there. The entrance to Wildwoods was covered by a bunch of bushes and vines. Some of the bushes looked like they had thorns, you would have to be really careful. As you walked into the entrance you carefully walked around the bushes with thorns. Some of the thorns came close to touching you but none of them actually did. The neighs got louder the deeper you walked into the entrance. You had never been inside the entrance of Wildwoods. It was all new to you, and it was amazing. You wished for something new while you were walking to the ranger base and you got it. You were so distracted by your surroundings that you didn’t realize you had gotten to the source of the neighs until you heard them again. You snapped your head towards the neighing. You moved your head so fast it hurt. You would have rubbed your neck in an attempt to soothe the pain, but you didn’t move. You couldn’t move you were shocked by what was in front of you. In front of you was a black horse with multiple wounds and damaged tack. Was this a new horse of the rangers? The horse neighed and bucked, and you noticed that one of its legs was not moving correctly. You feared the horse’s injuries caused lameness. Slowly you walked towards the horse “where is your rider?” You whispered to it not wanting to scare it. The horse turned to look at you, and you put a hand over your mouth quickly coming to a stop. The horse had red eyes. Blood red eyes that seemed to glow. You wanted to run you wanted to scream, but the look the horse gave you stopped you. It looked so sad… Could horses look sad? Were you imagining it? You didn’t have much horse experience. It had been a while since you last rode or had been around horses. The steed snorted, and looked away from you looking at the leg that did not move. You followed its gaze looking to its leg as well. You looked it over sighing in relief when you saw a vine wrapped on the horse’s leg. The horse was trapped that is why it wasn’t moving it was not lame, just trapped. You started moving again whispering “it’s okay” and “stay calm” to the horse. Some of those words were for you too. You were scared shitless, and you were trying to calm yourself down. The horse watched you as you walked towards it. Its red eyes watching you scared you more, and once you got close enough to the horse you slowly squatted down. “Please don’t kick me” you begged the horse, and it nickered. You hoped it was saying it would not kick you. Gently and slowly you grabbed the horse’s leg waiting for any indication that it was comfortable before proceeding. Once the horse relaxed its leg you began to try your best to remove the vine without further hurting the horse. You wanted something interesting to do today and you got it. If only the interesting thing would have been discovering a new kind of butterfly or a nice wolf and not a red-eyed horse in the woods. The vine slipped off the horse’s hoof, and you quickly moved to the side not wanting the horse to trample you.

You expected the horse to buck or to bite you or just do something crazy once it was free, but it just stood there. It snorted again, and it lowered its head to you sniffing your hair. The horse still had a medieval style bridle on it with an interesting symbol on the middle. The symbol looked like two snakes? You grabbed the reins of the bridle holding the horse still as you stood up. You examined the bridle. You hoped to find the owner’s or the horse’s name. You ended up getting lucky you found a tag on the bridle badly scribbled with sharpie that said ‘Khaan.’ You read it, and then you said it “Khaan?” The horse’s ears perked up, and you smiled “That’s your name? Khaan?” The horse neighed, and you pet them “where is your owner, Khaan? Can you lead me to them?” The horse did not move it just stood still watching you. With all the luck you were having today you expected the horse to move, and begin to lead you on some epic quest to save its owner. Luck must have run out. You thought about what to do, and while you thought it over you pet the horse. You stood there for a few seconds thinking about what to do while you patted the horse’s neck. Should you wait in place for the owner? Or go straight to the Dundull vet? Maybe report the missing horse to the rangers and hope they can find the owner? You didn’t know what to do, you were getting stressed. Khaan went stiff when he heard your name be called. It was your father he was calling you. You had taken too long, and he worried for you, so he came to find you. You panicked, you needed to find a way to hide the horse’s eyes. You looked at Khaan seeing his braided mane. He had a forelock it had been braided too and it looked long. You reached up undoing the braid. Khaan huffed as his forelock was spread evenly onto both sides of his face covering his eyes. You thanked his owner for growing out his forelock. You gently tugged on Khaan’s reins “can you walk Khaan?” The steed answered your question by taking stiff steps. The wounds on him hurt each time he took a step. You frowned, and you began to lead him out of the Wildwoods entrance “poor horse.” You pat his side “me and my dad will get you to the vet it will be okay.” Khaan nickered he trusted you to lead him through the entrance. His mane obscured his vision he was putting a lot of trust in you right now. Normally he would be very distrusting of a stranger. He would bite and kick, but right now he needed help, so he decided to trust. The ranger base was right outside and at the base was your dad. When he saw you he waved he stopped when he saw you were not alone. The man walked to you with his jaw open in disbelief “where did-.” You interrupted your dad wincing when you saw the upset look on his face “I’ll answer questions later right now we need to get this horse to the vet.” Your father saw the wounds on Khaan, and he understood your rude interruption. The horse looked… Familiar to him… Where had he seen it before? As you said before there was no time for questions, only time to help the horse, so he refocused. He could always think about where he saw the horse later. “Wait here” he said to you “I rode Kora’s horse here I’ll ride to Dundull and I’ll bring a trailer back with me.” Your father did not want the injured horse to walk further. You thanked your dad, and you watched him run back to Kora’s shire. Your dad wasted no time. He quickly got on the shire and you watched as he rode down the trail like he was in a race. Today was… Eventful you could not wait to go home and lay down. You smiled when you thought about bringing Khaan home. You knew he wasn’t your horse, but you were still excited. “You’re going to love staying with us Khaan” he huffed shaking his head to try and get his mane out of his eyes. “Don’t worry it won’t be forever” you fixed his forelock moving it away from his eyes. “Just until we find your owner… I hope they’re okay” You let out a little huff as Khaan laid his head on your shoulder.

He missed his owner, and he hoped she was alright. The explosion was bad, and from what Khaan saw his rider got the worst of it. You put a hand on his forehead, and you closed your eyes trying to provide some comfort to the poor horse.