Page 21

one

.

.

.

A Long Awaited Retirement

Tana

The wind makes my skin twitch and I swat at non-existent flies with my tail.

I hate this farm and the wavering fields of wheat and barley beyond a house that always felt more like a prison than a home.

Now that I can leave it, I don’t feel any more kindly toward it.

Parting is not a sweet sorrow.

Parting is freedom.

“Where will you go?” Fennryn asks, looking at the deed in his hand with a faint disgust.

He doesn’t hate this place the way I do …

but he did not expect me to leave so soon.

I can’t blame him for being confused.

My son is the only person I regret leaving behind, but he is grown, his life is his own to make and live, and I have done what I can for him.

“You know where.”

That makes him smile, at least.

I told him stories of the dryad he’s named after whenever his father wasn’t there to hear.

The one time I took him to meet her, he was too young to remember …

and the punishment his father had meted out was too cruel to risk taking him there again.

I smile down at my hooves, even though there’s no one here to explain why I laugh at the thought of him …

buried beneath the manure pile instead of where the horseshoe was driven into the ground by his sire.

He looks away from me, away from the farm, south, toward Petalfall.

“Do you think you’ll come back?”

“Not this time.”

He nods.

Centaurs are not ones for drawn out conversation.

“Then I suppose I’ll wish you safe travels and tell you I hope you find the peace he never let you have.”

I stamp my foot without meaning to.

That at least, I’ve fixed before I left.

“Don’t let them start it again.”

“Never.” He places his hand over his heart and dips his head.

“It will be difficult, but I will try to live up to the example you set.”

Shifting on all four feet, I tell him, “It won’t be hard. Just remember every little thing I ever taught you and forget everything Gora did.”

I raised him well enough.

I trust they won’t stray into the ugly habits of our predecessors.

“That will be tough … who’ll do the plowing?”

Swatting another fly with my tail, I shake my head at him and turn to go.

“ I am the one who taught you how to plow a field.”

He chuckles, because he knows.

But he doesn’t stay behind.

He walks with me to the end of the lane.

Our hooves clop on the cobbles in a familiar pattern.

It’s awkward and I hate every second of it, but my bags are packed, slung over my back, and I cannot stay another day in this wretched place.

Thirty-two years.

It has taken me three decades and more to leave this place.

As soon as we’re off the cobbled path, Fennryn stops and pulls a shoeing hook from his belt.

“I figured you wouldn’t need those anymore. You can leave them behind and I’ll make sure they’re put to good use.”

It’s been a very long time since I’ve gone unshod.

It is another kind of freedom.

I step onto the hook of the bar and look him in the eye.

“Melt these ones down. I don’t want anyone else forced to wear them.”

He agrees with a dip of his head.

The awful iron comes free from my hooves with an easy tug and I sigh with the relief of it.

No more shoes or rocky paths.

There is a meadow calling me.

Fennryn collects them and takes a deep breath.

He tenses his jaw and I know what the next three words are before he says them.

“I love you, Mom.”

His sire hated those words.

Three little words he never earned from anyone and never wanted anyone else to say to those who did deserve them.

“I love you.” The words, this close to that place, are still hard to say.

“If you ever need to come back, for any reason, know that you will have a place waiting for you, for however long or short you want to stay.”

“I love you too.” But I’m not coming back.

I leave him with a nod.

I would leave the memories of everyone and everything but him behind if I could, but they chase me, even now, as I walk steadily away from them.

Centaurs don’t retire.

Centaurs don’t leave the community.

Centaurs don’t fall in love with other creatures.

Maybe I’m not a centaur, after all.

Maybe I’ve just never known how to follow the rules.

This time, no one will come after me to haul me back.

The path from Petalfall to the Queen’s city is all soft dirt on either side of wheel ruts.

I’ve walked it a dozen times, but each of those times, I’ve known I would have to return.

Not this time.

No one can make me go back.

There’s a sign telling me it’s fifty miles to the next village, nearly a hundred more to the Queen’s city.

Its paint is chipped and fading …

but I’m not going to either.

Cutting into the forest beyond that sign, I leave all semblance of civilization behind.

There is magic in these woods.

Magic that doesn’t belong to the Queen.

Magic far older than hers.

I come to the forest to find it and to find her .

The first time I had stumbled into her glade it was an accident.

She braided flowers into my tail and grew apples for me to eat.

The second time, she had made me search for her, teasing and leading me further and further into the forest.

But centaurs have their rules and their traditions …

and I had Gora.

The thought of their trees and charts and family lines still made me ill.

They decided I would belong to him before I had even been born.

My only solace was that it wouldn’t happen to anyone ever again.

Destroying every trace of their plans and goals had been exhausting.

Now, it’s time to rest.