14. Fallon
14
FALLON
“ B last it all into the blasted… blazing… blast! ”
The hinge I’d been attempting to repair went flinging off into the rain-soaked night. The gate hung open, limp and useless. Exactly the opposite of what I needed it to be right now.
Luckily none of the other cattle had bolted. Just the one calf. Sora had gone bounding after it, but I couldn’t go retrieve either of them until this blasted gate was fixed. Storms were not ideal conditions for keeping cattle calm, and after the recent stampede, I wasn’t taking any chances with gates or fencing in disrepair.
Sora would guard the calf for now. My precious Darcy was safe inside the house, and-
“Fallon!”
Oh, no. I missed my wife so much I was already hallucinating the sound of her voice.
“Fallon!”
Her angry voice…
I turned just in time to see a murky, wet, pink-topped smudge moving swiftly towards me. If this was a hallucination, it was certainly very detailed. I could smell her sweetness through the rain. Could hear the wet slap of her boots hitting the mud as she ran. When she slammed to a stop before me, I could feel the heat of her breath against my chest. Could count the wet clumps of curling little lashes around her eyes.
“There you are!” the mirage of my wife gasped. She shoved her hands onto her hips, her chest heaving rapidly as water poured down on her.
“And there you are not ,” I said, looming over her frowning form. “I know you are not standing before me because I know my wife would not have ventured out into weather this bad on her own. My clever, pretty Darcy, whose safety matters more to me than my own life, would not have taken such a risk.”
“Shut up.” She smacked her hands up on either side of my face, one palm to each of my cheeks, pressing until my lips puckered forwards, beak-like. “Yes, I am here. Why are you here? Do you know how long I’ve been running to – hold on.”
She stopped talking and bent over, her breath coming alarmingly fast.
Curse the calf and curse the gate. I had to get my wife back inside. I’d deal with the rest later.
But just as I took a step towards her, she was straightening and fixing me with a wrathful glare.
“You should be home right now! It’s dangerous out here!” she said, wagging a beautiful, rain-soaked finger at me.
“I know! That is why I cannot fathom why you have come!” My tail snapped out, grasping the broken hinge from the ground and holding it up to her annoyed, blinking face. “The gate needs repairing. A calf and Sora went through, but I can’t follow them until I-”
“Sora’s out there?”
The last bit of colour drained from her face, making the dark flecks on her skin stand out in stark contrast to her sudden pallor.
“Sora will be fine for now. I just have to-”
Just had to chase down my wife, apparently. Because as soon as I’d confirmed that Sora was gone, so was she.
It is a good thing I am a healthy young male , I thought, clenching my fangs and shoving the broken hinge into my pocket, otherwise I am not sure I would survive this .
There was no time to hammer the hinge back into shape now. I used some spare rope I had looped around my arm to secure the side of the gate enough so that it would at least swing shut.
Before it closed all the way, I slipped through and sprinted for Darcy.