"Can I borrow a horse? Ryker is great and all, but he's afraid of snow."

There is a noise outside.

It's probably a noise he's heard before, but he can't be too sure if it is or not. So many pictures run through his head, his ears flicking as he attempts to zero in on it. It is a heavy noise, rhythmic. Probably footsteps of heavily booted feet, probably the heavy pawsteps of a very big animal come to eat him.

Who can be sure? He certainly can't. After all, the sounds outside the walls that he can't see are the scariest. Frankly, even the sounds he can see are scary, the world is a terrifying place for a horse.

He strains and tries to see what the sound is, poking his head tentatively out of the stall over the door to look. The stable is empty, save for a few other horses he can see across the aisle from him. The noise still persists, even when they aren't moving.

Thump
Thump
Thump

What is that! His head turns left, turns right, flips to the side so he can see up with one eye and down with the other.
What is it! He tosses his head back and forth, trying to pinpoint it.

His nostrils flare, he feels the breeze on his brow and it frightens him. With a small squeak of a whinny, he pulls back into the safety of the four walls of his stall, backing up almost clumsily in his haste to get away from anywhere where the horrible propagator of this encompassing sound might be able to reach him. His back is against the wall, this is good! He is safe!

But what if it can come through the walls...

In only so many pictures in his scared brain, he dredges something monstrous and black crashing through the wall of the barn and he moves again, clopping away toward the center of his stall with a loud terrified neigh. He watches the outer wall carefully now, his eyes rolling with his tossing head to try and see this imagined point of entry. After all, it can't come through if he is looking at it, right? Right!?

The light of the lantern hanging from the ceiling is flickering, crackling loudly in his paranoid skull through his swiveling ears. It only adds to this strange delusion, brought about by the noise he cannot source. It hasn't sounded again, but in his head, his memory remembers and his ears pin flat to his head. He sees, before his own eyes, the shadowy blot in one corner as it grows and twists, slithering across the walls and floor. Creeping toward him slowly, steadily. Slowly, steadily...

He lets off another terrified neigh and rears up, attempting to strike at it with his hooves, to prevent this awful thing that has dredged from the darkness from getting to him. From doing ... something horrible to him!

A snort from the stall over stops him from hitting the ground and gives him something else to concentrate on. He turns circles a few times, tosses his head a few times more, and finally stops pointing toward the other stall. He cannot see the other horse, but to know it is there is something of a comfort. It moves, and the movement brings the sound again, less a thumping and heavier still.

Boom
Boom
Boom

The sound is amplified and he screams away from it, a flailing of horse and limbs hitting every wall imaginable. It is not a sound he recognizes anymore and it only serves to rub his already-raw nerves redder still.

A new sound permeates the space, the squealing creak of metal hinges and locks undoing, and there is nothing to save the newcomer from the wild thrashing of the small stallion as he attempts to defend himself from yet another unknown threat. All he hits is the door and the walls, slamming it shut on the other and being rewarded with a stern expletive for his efforts.

Horse sight is notoriously poor, and as he sits in the middle of the stall, huffing in exertion and readying himself for another attack, he sees the blob of something familiar over the top of the door. The smell of tobacco smoke, the grumbling warbled but recognizable. He lets off a noise that is neither neigh nor whinny but somewhere in between and skirts around the stall to give the door a wide berth.

That awful noise, the one of bad hinges and clicking locks, sounds again and the whirl begins anew with a screaming neigh and a backing rear until he accidentally brushes the far wall with a haunch. Panic gives way to reflex and he defends himself against the new offender with a vicious kick. The sound of his hooves hitting the wood startles his neighbor to scream back, which only adds fuel to his own panicked offensive. His legs splay as he bounces back and forth, tossing his head with abandon.

"Ryker! You absolute ninny of a horse! It's me!"

He knows that gruff smoke-soaked voice, knows the thick outline of the blob standing in front of him. The familiarity in the voice makes him pause for half a second and prick his ears, pulling his head back to better see this new person. No, not new, he knows this one. He knows this one and knows that despite the rolling eyes and frothing mouth corners, he is safe with this one.

He is safe.
He is safe now and that is all that matters, the feeling of the calloused palm on his head, on his nose. Familiar and worked and warm.

"The Nether'd you get all worked up for, anyway."

It sounds exhausted, it probably is. Such a display has worn the stallion out as well. He huffs into the palm when offered, snuffling against it out of habit. The world is less scary and before long , he recognizes it more for what it is than what he thinks it is. He is no longer afraid, at least for now, and when the hands retract from him, he is calm and asleep.

"Dumb horse..."

The affection in the tone, even and steady. He doesn't entirely understand any of the words spoken to him, but the tone is soft and secretly adoring. He almost doesn't hear the click of the stall door as it's locked shut in the wake of his departing rider.

What was that!