This Kindred Tornado

Green air.

A tornado is coming.

I was told to run. But the water is wild, and the false rapids roil in the sickly light. My haunches are weakened to the rocks.

I think my rider is dead. We were fired on the instant we reached the water. I, a sure river crosser, faltered in the green, green light. He is folded and floppy, awkward, and I am weak on the rocks. He is strapped to the seat that is strapped beneath my belly.

This is a moment I have never known to dread. It is dread that fills me now.

A war. That’s what the men say. They say it too often, and the word hurts my head. War. Does the river know we fight a war beside it? I see the enemies coming. They shoot the river.

I think the river knows.

Who will strike me?

Everything is coming closer. I look to the horizon. A once bright sun has become green and I think it is dying. Death has arrived with the tornado. I can see it forming in the spiral sky, in the clouds that sneer from above, as my enemies sneer, atop their steeds who shy from the water’s opposite bank.

Where is the tornado? We are its labor pangs. I think I feel the pain of something else coming, a pain like that which took my rider and made him floppy upon my back.

Their choice is to cross the river, and I stand here, weakened to the rocks. I am only looking. I see the sky and I see my enemy and I see the river rapids. I see my brothers coming to me. My choice is war. My choice is death. My only choices.

The blood of my rider runs across my back, as I should be running away from the river, and trails down my back legs, tangling in my tail, and making my hooves glisten in the green, sickly light. I do not know if I can wash away my burden. I do not know if I want to.

The river is cold. There is an eddy before me, deep, and softly rotating the echoes of the river rapids. If I leave now, my brothers will cheer and follow. My enemy would try to follow. But their steeds are not as sure in the water, and this is a truth the water has told me. I am standing and looking. I can feel my mind working like the eddy, gently lapping a plan against the shore.

The swirling sky is green and sickly, and a tornado can sting. The air moves itself and it moves the sand of the earth against my skin, into my eyes. The tornado can move the river, steal its flow to bring it up to its lips, as I have moved to meet the river with my own.

I can find a kindred spirit in this storm.

My enemies are upon me and my brothers. They have their own sting and I stand looking, haunches weakened to the rocks. Is this what death does? I can feel a pain coming.

I can see an eye and I can hear a brush stroke against stretched canvas. I can see the green light falling across this moment. I see myself, half collapsed beside the water. I think this is what death does.

The war. The war. The war.

War.

War.

War.

My head pounds to this drum and the eddy of my mind begins to take on speed. The enemy’s stings send the dust of the earth to my shoes, and I take heed of the green light. My rider is dead. My enemies race for the strike and I know what death will do to me.

I think I have a friend in the sky this night, and a friend in the river rapids, and a friend in the brothers who will follow me into the blur of dark.

To run beneath a green, sickly sun, as it sets, to feel the cascading nightfall backdrop our flight, I can feel a pain coming.

Will I be weakened on the rocks, evermore?

Never have I hoped for dread in the face of pain. It is hope that fills me now.

My burden will spur me on.