Genre: Fairy Tale
Character: A horse whisperer
Material: A whip
Sentence: " I didn't mean to answer the call."
Bonus: The story involves a fight.
I didn’t mean to answer the call.
But there’s only so much you can do when the call is your true calling, and when it is in your destiny to answer.
I was born Lorentz Giggell Snapblad; now the world calls me The Whisperer. I grew up on my family’s large farm, and animals surrounded me from the time that I learned to walk. I was four when my family discovered that I could speak to animals, and seven when I learned that the animals could speak back. Soon after, I was the jewel of the kingdoms—carted around from town to town, coerced into figuring out why a sheep had become lame or a goat suddenly had no interest in its feed.
Years passed. And more years. I grew older, as was the tradition.
Then one day, I visited the king’s prized stallion. He was showing signs of lameness, the summons had said, yet there was no physical injury or ailment. I was to speak with the horse and find out what I could.
The stables were luxurious; the muck-heap was nicer than most peasants’ homes. The horse itself was a sleek, bright-eyed beast.
The first words it said to me were, ‘Fuck off, man.’
I uncoiled my whip and readied it. I was loathe to use it, but on some occasions, it was all that protected me from injury. In my profession, more than one flying hoof had broken a rib; more than one set of powerful jaws had clamped upon my flesh.
I readied my whip. I readied myself.
The horse charged.
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