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Losing Him

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

The sun cast long shadows over the field, the bordering trees keeping patches safe from the lick of winter. Every blade of grass out in the open was coated in a glittering smattering of frost that I doubted would disappear by the end of the day, lingering on as he has lingered on too long already. The field where my three geldings were kept was several acres - the exact number I forgot in the moment, too much going on for accuracy to be of concern - in size and enough for them to roam all year round with only the trees and a solid field shelter acting as respite from the weather.

Sighing heavily, my chest heaved beneath my thick coat and I looked down at my hoof-like nails adorning the ends of my fingers. A few days ago, I had painted them electric blue but that blue was now chipped and scraped away beyond all recognition by the horses I cared for on a daily basis. Day in and day out, they deserved all the love and attention I could provide them with. And I did it all with joy in my heart, for my boys were my world and my life, completely and utterly. Screw having a boyfriend, right?

I snickered to myself, hugging my arms around my chest. My bay coat needed grooming again. Damn it.

As an equine anthro, some said it was weird that I kept horses for riding. I said the same of canine furs and their similar companions, four-legged dogs lolloping at their sides. It had always been a source of contempt for an anthro to own a non-sentient animal of the same species, however vaguely they were related, though as much as others mocked me, I knew I did the same. It was how things worked. My boys loved me and I wouldn't give them up or the world.

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I was trying not to think about the trio of horses, the three musketeers, grazing a short distance away: an Irish Hunter cross, a Thoroughbred and a Welsh pony. They had been together for seven years, living in the same field in something akin to harmony, though I would not go as far as to say that it was perfect harmony. There were too many kicks, bites and indignant squeals for that. But boys would be boys. I chuckled hoarsely, ignoring the tears welling up as my nostrils flared, a stupid little thing I did in an effort to hold back unwelcome emotion. Sunshine gleamed upon the four equines' backs and something twisted deep in the pit of my heart, or where I felt that my heart had been before being ripped out crudely.

It was the wrong day for him to go. If the weather had been truly in tune with me, it would have raged a wailing storm, trees bending and groaning under the weight of the wind. Truth be told, my hole of a heart was heavy enough and every hoof step sent a throb of pain through my body, from hoof to ear tip. The doctor said it was bone pain from a bad bout of influenza but that was not the reason that my nose had started running something dreadful.

I rubbed snot away with the back of my brown paw, staring dully at it as if it was not my own. It did not look like mine anymore. Something must have happened. There was something wrong with my paw. And my hoof-nails were chipped into the hoof, not just the gaudy polish. How had I ever thought that would have been a sexy polish choice? Stupid. Very stupid.

The vet's four wheel drive, an appropriate work vehicle for one who travelled to farms and was often on the road to treat patients, pulled on to the grass on the other side of the wooden field gate. I pretended not to notice him turning off the engine and staggering from the car with a treatment bag slung over his shoulder. The red fox anthro floundered in the mud, cursing as it sucked at his already half-wrecked boots, dragging him back. Vindictive, hot pleasure flashed through me and I latched on to it, eyes closed as it fed me, strengthened me. Let him struggle. If the vet could not reach me then my boy would not have to go today. The vet would simply have to go on to his next call and that would be the end of that.

Alas, it was not to be and the dog fox let himself into the field, closing the gate carefully at his heels. I wished he had fallen in the mud, splattered it right across his stupid, ugly mug. Skinny as a rake, the vet plodded on to drier ground with a grunt that could have been relief and I swallowed the urge to stick out my boot and send him tumbling to the ground right as he reached me. He didn't mean any harm really but not a fraction of my soul wanted him there.

The fox stopped at my side and exhaled, breast frosting in the air before his narrow muzzle.

"Hi, Jade." He greeted me with a sad smile that did not reach his eyes for good reason. "Lovely day today, isn't it?"

"Sure."

My clipped response was not the most polite, yet it would have to do for I had nothing better for the fox. He snuffled and pushed his glasses further up his nose from where they had slid; one of the clips, which would have usually held them in place, was broken and dangling. He looked out to the three horses tearing up greedy mouthfuls of grass and reached into his bag for a smaller, black box with two latches. I didn't want to think of what was inside that box.

"Is he ready?" The vet asked.

"He's grazing peacefully enough."

My eyes were on my boy and my boy alone, but I still saw the vet cross his arms over his chest out of the corner of my eye, lips twisting with impatience. For him, this was routine. For me, this was my whole life falling apart.

The fox hesitated, box of horrors in paw, so innocuous.

"And...are you ready?"

"I have no choice in the matter."

"You made the choice to bring me here..." The fox shook his head. "He's in pain, Jade. He's been in pain for too long already. It's his time."

Even as we spoke, my boy stumbled, pawing at the air with a front hoof as if to shake discomfort for his body. Laminitis was a bitch. His ribs were showing. He wasn't eating right. He was on painkillers, ridiculous painkillers. We thought we got rid of it the first time. And the second. And the third. The whore just kept coming back and nothing we did got rid of it for good while his pain grew and grew. Even if I knew it was for the best, I didn't have to like it.

"Call him over."

The vet's voice was surprisingly gentle and I found myself following his instruction almost without conscious thought.

"Here, Diego, come on, boy, come on."

Diego, the bay Thoroughbred with a coat so similar to mine, lifted his head and flicked a ear, though made no move to come nearer. He tossed his head, upper lip flapping as he peeled it back from his teeth. I sighed and shook my head, tail clamped down firmly over the back of my jodhpurs. There was no flick in it today and I felt as if there never would be again. Why should I get to be happy?

"He doesn't seem to be all that eager to join you today."

The vet scratched the back of his neck.

"We'll go there," I said dully. "He probably knows that something's up."

"Jade, he's as calm as I've ever seen him." The vet paused. "Trembling a bit."

"He likes to feel the sun on his coat."

"So you didn't rug him?"

"I didn't want to cut it off his dead body."

Without waiting for an answer, I strode forward, bare hooves sinking into the grass and mud. My boy raised his head from the grass and pushed his nose into my coat, shoving between my breasts with all the life of a three-year-old. I swallowed hard. He did not act his age with his springs and bucks before he fell ill. It was so unfair.

"Hey, boy," I said, words hard to force past my lips. "I'm here, don't worry, boy. You're not going to hurt anymore. It's all going to be okay. No more days cooped up in a makeshift stable. No more box rest. Just over the rainbow bridge for you. No more pain, Diego, no more."

Lipping at the collar of my coat, Diego did not understand. I fed him the last sugar cube from my pocket and he crunched it up, bobbing his muzzle evident equine delight. The vet approached quietly, ready to do his job. The Thoroughbred pushed his nose into my paw, searching out more treats, his eyes bright and ears pricked to attention as his field mates moseyed away. It was as if they knew that I needed space with him, now of all times. And I knew in my heart that it was indeed time. This was one of the best days Diego had had in a long time, where pain did not make him stand stock still, afraid of the pain. It was better for the deed to be done on a day when his favourite sun was shining.

I buried my muzzle in his mane and breathed in his sweet, horsey scent, that natural aroma that no anthro could truly evoke - it simply wasn't the same.

"Good, good," the fox murmured, setting the box on a small knoll to retrieve the syringe and small, deadly vial from within. "Keep him nice and calm. Do you need to get a head collar for him?"

"No..." I grimaced, running my paw down the arch of his neck: so beautiful. "He's not going anywhere."

"As long as you are sure..." The vet was unconcerned with whether my boy had a head collar on or not, I knew he didn't care. "He just has to stay still, go nice and easy. Stand by his head."

"So quickly?"

I blinked tears away, standing with an arm slung around my boy's neck. If I held on tightly enough, I could keep him safe, I knew I could. Just a little longer.

"Yes, it's better. Now, keep him calm."

As I stepped to Diego's head, leaning in close to whisper sweet nothings, the vet did his business. I could not watch the needle push into my boy's body but I felt him shudder, a start of surprise at the pinprick of pain. He had become too used to pain and something like that did not faze him. He only nipped at my shoulder and blinked devotedly at me. A short distance away, the palomino pony, covered in mud as always, lifted his head and snorted.

"I'm sorry, Diego," I whispered as the vet stepped away with a now empty syringe. "This is for the best... I'm so sorry..."

The words caught in my throat and a strangled sob tore itself from my lips as Diego swayed. It was happening quickly as the vet had said it would. As if bowed by the weight of the world on his back, his forelegs buckled and he slowly but surely folded to the ground. But, for Diego, that weight had finally been lifted.

My heavy set hunter, draped in grey dapples, and the bitty pony huffed anxiously, pawing at the grass, though I could not pay them much mind, not yet. They would need me later but, for now, Diego needed me more. This was the last time he would ever need me. The gelding rolled to his side, blinking as if he did not understand what was happening to him, head slowly, slowly sinking to the grass that he loved to graze so much. Or had loved to graze.

The pony ambled closer, tossing his head with the whites of his eyes showing.

"Easy, lads," I called to them in a broken tone, paws shaking as I crouched by Diego's head, watching the light fade from his eyes. "Easy...take it easy... It's okay..."

But it wasn't okay. Diego was gone. He heaved a sigh as he slipped into unconsciousness, a muscle within his near nostril flinching in a spasm. His eyes closed and it was only a few seconds more before his heart failed him, the final stage of cardiac arrest from lethal injection claiming him in the moments after unconsciousness swept him away.

And that was that. Diego's eyes would never open again. He would gallop through the heavens above forevermore. I hoped he wouldn't miss me too much, the silly mare hiding her muzzle in his mane as she bawled her eyes out, an uncomfortable fox hovering over with flapping, anxious paws. I had only wanted my boy to be happy. And I would miss him every day for the rest of my life.

As if from a great distance, I heard the vet speaking to me, packing up his box, and I could not answer him. I was gone too. I was somewhere else, far, far away. Bernie, the grey draft horse, reared with a shriek, hooves striking the air as the pony spin, the whites of his eyes showing. Their field mate was down - what was wrong? Why wasn't he getting up? Bernie stormed up in a fit, wheeling around us before returning to Freddie, the pony frozen in place and shaking from head to hoof. His field mate was gone.

Freddie nickered for his lifelong friend, approaching the body that had once been Diego with hesitant, faltering steps. The vet rested a paw on my shoulder and I slapped it away, eyes on the quivering pony nosing Diego's hindquarters, still warm with the heat of life. He did not understand. Not yet.

Their screams echoed through the field for the rest of the night, nickers and stomps audible from my bungalow at the far end of the field, a fence between us. All night, I tossed and turned as the rain hammered my window, wind whipping up a storm through the trees, which crashed and groaned in threat of falling. I wept into my pillow, wishing that there was something I could do for them, the mourning duo circling the tarpaulin covering Diego's body. He would lay there, unmoving, until he was taken away to be cremated the next day.

I shuddered, wind howling outside. The weather fit this night, unlike the day. It should have been me and not Diego. Diego didn't want to die. He didn't want to go. I should have taken him place. Living without my boy wasn't worth life at all with a gaping hole in my chest.

My boys screamed and galloped about the field, begging their companion to join them. But Diego would never buck or squeal or gallop ever again. Through the night, I flinched away from their grief, burrowing deeper into my own.

They didn't want their friend to be gone.