"Pleasure is the bait of sin." ~Plato
Goennec Pen: #4.
Name: Stag.
How would you use him:He would be my third Goennec, the second male Queen would recruit. She has a thing for white/silver guys, and seems to be brewing a collection. He will be the one to stumble on crush and fall face-first into love with her. Of course, Queen will be completely and utterly uninterested. He'll find a humble friend in Alabaster, who will give him advice when Queen moves her haughty gaze off of his and steps away from his pleads for some sort of relationship. Queen might appreciate his involvement, but from the outside it looks as though she's close to murdering the poor man. He truly seeks some form of appreciation and acception everywhere he goes, and for years he has recieved that from the women he attracts. But Queen... she's different. Queen is somebody who actually turned him done, and she will remind him of his parents who were always so ashamed. She'll be the one he tries to seduce. I will of course use him as a character and manipulate him into both Alabaster and Queen's stories and the herd itself. He will have a page for himself on my character site of my Goennecs, and will receive much art and adoration. <3
Personality:...
History:My first memory is not a pleasant one.
“He’s… he’s not normal, is he?” My mother’s tone was devastated, her words wrung dry with fretful thoughts. Half-asleep in the afternoon sunshine, I fought to rouse myself and comfort her. At that point of time, I didn’t understand why she has so sad.
Barely a week old, I didn’t deserve these horrendous comments.
Beside her, my father’s voice reached my ears. “I’m so disappointed. Why did he turn out so… different?” His gaze was so hot with shame that I could always feel it tracing the outlines of my delicate feet.
Cracking open a single eye, the one safely hidden from their view, I looked down at my legs. They were sprawled out beside me, resting within the shelter of the tall meadow grass. The thin shadows sliced along my gangly legs like wounds and drew stripes across three of my hooves.
Wrinkling my brow, I peered at them harder, trying to find whatever was so wrong with them. Secretly, I sneaked a glance at my parent’s feet, studying their equal feet. Two matched hooves, two matched paws.
Their voices drifted off as my parents wandered further down the field and I sat up in the swaying grass, staring down at my feet. At the tender age of a newborn, I recognized, instinctively, that I was not normal.
The months passed in blurred Technicolor. My memories are hazy here, vague and recalled from a child who constantly avoided his parents. I can barely even recall their faces these days; their once beautiful features have faded into clinging oblivion.
I do remember that I pretended consistently that I had better things to do to get out of my mother or father’s companionship. They were both terrible for two different things they constantly did.
Curled up in the cool, flickering night shadows, my mother would weave lulling stories of a far-off elder sister I had. When she first began spinning me the tales, I listened with rapid attention and wide eyes. Eventually, I began noting that she would linger on the mere sentences where she spoke of my full sister’s perfect hooves and paws, and when she did, cast a soft, wilting gaze on my own.
After a few months, I figured out that avoiding this story time was the best way to escape her constant criticism.
In a near completely opposite fashion, my father made me feel worthless in the boundaries he sought to make me live up to. He berated me with chores he knew that my small frame could not handle, stacked up journeys and adventures that I would never be able to attend. Every time he needled me down and forced me to grind out the admission that I was unable to fulfill his standards, a regal look would cross his muzzle. He would lift his head and boldly tell me that, I was a failure because I had merely one paw.
At eight months old I barely spent a few hours every day at the serene square meadow we called home. I would sneak back in late during the evening, crawl over to the jagged underbrush I slept in, and grab a few uncomfortable hours of sleep. I would wake before my parents even claimed coconsciousness, when the sun barely even offered flaming light and bleeding color of the sky. Silently, I would shake the sleep off of my exhausted figure and creep back out into the main herd, leaving behind my slumbering parents near completely unaware of my existence.
For their part, my mother and father let me do whatever I wanted. I gradually came to accept that they didn’t care about me; without my own independent streak, I never would have survived the first year. They would never admit this, but I believe, deep in my soul, that they were trying to starve me out.
I spent more time in the neighboring herd then I did with my own parents. Most of the other foals by age did not understand this unnatural aversion to the pair that had borne and raised me, but of course they didn’t. My parents were natural born actors. Completely sweet and compassionate in public, no one saw through the thin facades to the cruelty I knew lay beneath.
I prized all of my friends way above my mother and father. I have hoards of followers and companions who never seemed to tire of me; I won their affections day after day in daunting stunts. My single paw was never as over analyzed as it was at home, and I found myself honestly relaxing in the presence of pals.
When I hit a full year, I struck off from the herd. I left without a cool word to my mother and father, which I think they actually preferred. My group of friends had known for months that I was planning the extreme march, and gave me showers of good luck as I stretched on. Running away from the herd, I tossed back my head and let the wind blow wild fingers through my mane.
I felt amazing.
I felt free.
It took me a multitude of months to reach my destination, but personally I think that’s a fairly good record. When my hooves first struck the soft soil I wasn’t even aware of where I was headed. It was nice to just run for once and not have to feel the burdensome weight of my parent’s disapproval.
As I grew into a youthful adulthood and flourished in a handsome figure, I attracted quite a number of females. Many wished for me to cultivate a sort of small band under me like most other rams nearing their safe primes. At times, I would trip on crushes with them and give them permission to follow me for a few weeks; but quietly, stealthily, I would slide out of wherever we were staying for the night and vanish into the swirling, obsidian shadows. Most of them barely even remembered me after a few days, I’m sure.
So I continued to travel and move forward, seeking only a sense of belonging. I found many females who begged for me to love them, to make them my stationary mate, but I wasn’t interested. I passed them by with polite words and an approving, winning smile and galloped into the next band, scattering romance behind me wherever I went.
The first time I actually found a female I found love in was when I was two and a half years old. I had finally filled out in my figure, and if I do say so myself, I was rather handsome back then. I had pride now. I could easily snatch basic land from older males in my travels if I wished to stay for a few days. It was a nice, smooth, unpredictable life, filled overlapping to the brim with excitement and adventures. But, try as I did to avoid admitting it, it was also very lonely.
So, the first morning I came into the herd and laid eyes on her, I knew she was the one.
It was my first morning in the unfamiliar herd. I merely wandered along their edges, having long since discussed a sweet compromise with the leader itself. I was allowed to be there, if the stay last only a full rotation of a day and I did not leave with any of his members. I gave the ram my word and bowed my head, deceiving him into a simple belief that I was being honest.
Ha. I never walked away from herds without the prettiest doe in tow.
The early morning sunlight felt good on my broad back and stroked my fur; I could almost feel the comfortable scorch of the heat across my flanks. The good weather lifted me into a better mood then I had been for days, and I trotted along the boundaries with a skip in my step.
Turning the corner in one of the edges and moving into the trees, I did not notice the doe until I was mere feet away from her. She padded through the heavy spring-laden boughs with a patient silence, her petite hooves making no sound as they carefully picked a perfectly untouched path through the crinkled leaves underfoot. A gorgeous, appealing pelt of thick dark brunette overlaid with a vivid, complex pattern of neon green left light lingering behind my eyelids. I knew in that brief, breathless second, I had been struck near dead with love.
I was practiced at attraction; I lifted my head just so, letting the sunbeams reflect off the glassy appearance of my horns. The proud arch of my thick neck gave me a both regal and magnificent image, and I waited for her to glance up and see me, to watch a beautiful, curling smile to curve over her slender muzzle.
When the stranger walked away from me without even a mere backwards look, I was startled. It had been years since I had been ignored so blatantly, and it brought be a flashback of my cruel mother turning her gaze away in frigid shame.
I denied the alpha ram his promise and, rather then start a war between us, begged him to stay for a few more days. I feigned a polite injury to my ankle, making it obvious that if he challenged me to leave that I was not hurt enough that I would be unable to defend myself. As much as he seemed annoyed at my constant circling, he granted me another two days.
Personally, I figured it was plenty of time. I spent hours in that specific clump of trees, waiting with a baited breath for that female to come back. Many curious ones came and visited me, always from a distance, as though I had an unspoken aura of “taken” flowing around my figure. I was so distracted by the unknown doe that I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t taking advantage of my time to flirt with others.
Finally, on the last tolling hour of when I had swore I would leave, she reappeared. My back was turned to her, a defeated, acrid taste burning in my mouth, when I heard a smooth, quiet, “Hello.”
At first, I pretended I hadn’t heard the greeting. I was in no mood to whittle away a few hours in a useless conversation with just another gorgeous girl. So I merely flicked on ear, as though chasing away a buzzing fly, and continued walking away. Behind me, the softest tinkle of laughter wrapped around my body. The sound was splendid, like tiny, miniature silver bells such as the humans kept gently bumping against each other.
I lifted my head, abruptly interested in this one. Glancing over my mind with a simple introduction resting on my tongue, I stopped dead.
The beautiful female watched me with an amused smile, her brilliant blue eyes glittering in joy at my final recognition of her. My mouth was instantly dry, and for the first time in my life since my bashful parents, I felt embarrassed. I ducked my head, shyly peering up at her from a lower distance. “…hello.” I finally managed out, chiding myself on acting like such a dumb yearling.
Her reaction was another one of those awe-inspiring laughs, the one that left tingles going in shockwaves up and down my legs. I could barely hide my excitement at her speaking to me. “I’m Stag.” I greeted swiftly, bowing my impressive head in what I hoped was a passable polite nod.
In front of me, she folded her front legs and bowed her entire front body in a smooth motion that I immediately envied. The single paw I had been graced with sometimes made it rather awkward to do any sort of elegant movement like that without a wobble. The unpleasant thought immediately drew my attention to her feet, and for a second, I stared, startled out of my next wooing comment. The four heels were all normally shaped paws. There was not a hoof in sight.
Seeing where my vision wandered, a tight frown crossed her beautiful expression. Obviously, judging by her reaction, she got branded a lot for her differences. I nearly tripped over myself to fix my mistake. “No, I’m sorry.” I blurted out, speaking to her curved haunches as she was already preparing to walk away again. “I just… I figured your feet would have been as perfect as the rest of you.” I almost squeaked with how unintelligent that sounded and hung my head. Great. Now she was going to go away and definitely not visit me again before I left.
Silently, she peered back over her shoulder at me, mulling over my excuse. Finally, she shot me a half-smile. I felt like I deserved way less then that. “Okay. I’m Spice.” She smiled faintly at a name, and swung around to face me.
I lifted my head, hope shining from my bright teal eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Spice.” I replied softly, my voice partially muffled by my surprise at her actually speaking to me again. This beautiful, untamable girl was actually talking to me, an entirely undeserving ram.
“Listen, I promised your leader that I would be leaving tonight… Would you perhaps accompany me a few miles from your herd?” I knew I could not ask her to leave with me. A mere second long conversation would not be enough to convince her that I could actually be her single mate. She warily thought over the offer, absently chewing her mouth together in a gesture I had never seen another do before. I blinked, distracted, and raised my gaze to meet hers.
Spice shot me a playful smile. “I would love to.”
Those four simple words changed my life from that day onward. I journeyed with the stunning doe at my side, and for the first few days, I bought constant excuses why she could not return to the herd. I was careful not to venture too far and force her into my company, but she not once complained. When I finally worked up my courage to plead for her to stay with me just for a few months, I was surprised when she completely burst into laughter at me.
Her reply was that she had been planning it all along. I was just being my normal foolish self asking her such an easy question.
Spice could lift my heart after lonely nights when I sought escape from my nightmares. She never judged me for the single paw that graced my body, and never questioned me further when I refused to expand on my parents and family back home. For months we traveled the land, and by the time the question wandered around for me to ask her to stay and become my mate, our relationship had naturally progressed that far. There was comfort to be found in the other that I believe both of us realized we would never find anywhere else.
...
[Obviously editing. <3 xD]
but I would also LOVE to write a story on him
He looks like the perfect little guy to write a tresure hunter story on
