Goennec Pen #: 9
Name: Farhan/Hayat
How would you use him/her: He would join my group of much-loved characters, and I will most definitely make him a spot in my character thread and treat him with plently of art. I'm not sure yet if I would RP him on the Role Play, but I might. (I'm not sure how his history would fit in with the plot. ^^')
Define your Goennec:
.:Theme Song:.The Good Life by Three Days Grace
[link].:History:.Farhan was born in the Nefud desert during one of the driest droughts on record. He was a weak kid from the lack of water, and steadily began to get weaker, despite his stubborn attitude and willingness to survive.
One day, a harsh sandstorm began to blow up around his herd. The rest of the goennecs knew to lie down on the dunes and protect their faces, but it was Farhan's first storm, and in his panic, he tried to run from it. The wind blew so hard around his ears that he couldn't hear his mother's desperate pleas to calm down and cover his face. He ran as far as his malnurished body would allow, before collapsing in the sand as the storm swallowed him whole.
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Emir had been searching the desert for two hours now for the missing foal. It had escaped last night through a hole in one of the fences, which was now being patched up. Emir's father, the owner of the stables, expected his son to bring it back, but so far, no luck. He sighed and continued out into the desert.
After a while, Emir noticed a bundle of fur in the distance. He thought it may have just been a mirage, a trick of the light, but he went to investigate it anyway, hoping that if it really was the missing foal that it was not too badly hurt. As he got closer, though, he realized that there was indeed an animal lying on the dunes, but it wasn't a horse. The creature looked more like the goats that his father occassionally bought as companions for the horses. Upon closer inspection, Emir noticed that in place of hooves, it had paws on its front legs. He gasped quietly.
It must be a goennec, but I've never seen any of them around here, he thought as he crouched down and carefully reached out his hand to touch it. Suddenly, the goennec gave a weak bleat, and Emir snatched his hand back, reacting so quickly that he lost his balance and fell back onto the sand. After regaining his composure, he saw how weak the poor creature was and, without thinking of the consequences, decided to bring it back with him to the house, completely forgetting about the foal that he had been sent out to search for.
His father noticed the bundle in Emir's arms as soon as he walked through the front door. He questioned his son about it, and at first, was incredibly angry at him for not being able to find the foal, which had been one of the finest the stables had ever bred, but after calming down quite a bit, he allowed Emir to keep it in one of the stalls and care for it until it got better. Emir was overjoyed at this and quickly settled the goennec into its new home. Not realizing that goennecs were gregarious animals, he put it in a stall far from the Arabian horses that were his father's pride and joy, thinking that it would want the most peace possible while it recovered. He named it Hayat, meaning "life" in Arabic.
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Hayat quickly recovered and grew large and strong from the mare's milk Emir gave him. Soon, he was standing up in his stall, bleating incessantly once he heard him aproaching. Caring for Hayat was the best part of Emir's day. He loved to play with him and quickly renamed him Farhan, an Arabic name meaning "joyful". Farhan himself also seemed to like his new name much more than his old one, but a few weeks after this amazing transformation, he slowly became more and more lonely. Farhan loved Emir's visits, but he wanted to go out and explore the rest of the stables, meet the horses, frolic in the fields. Emir began to notice that Farhan wasn't as excited as he usually was, and he began to worry. Perhaps he was coming down with something? Perhaps he was already ill?
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A few days later, Emir was walking down the center aisle of the stables to go check on Farhan. When he reached his stall, he noticed something strange. There was silence in the air; no bleating. Fearing the worst, Emir snapped the stall door open, only to see that Farhan wasn't inside. He rushed out of stables, calling the goennec's name over and over again.
Finally, his ear caught the sound of a faint bleat coming from the mares' pasture. Emir ran over to the field and climbed up onto the fence to get a better view. His eyes scanned through the tall grass and fell on a blur of blue near one of the mares and her foal. He hopped over the fence and walked slowly over to the mare, and even though she had known him since she was born, he knew that mares could be extremely protective of their foals and didn't want to take any chances. He went up to within a few feet of her before realizing that the goennec was playing with her foal. Emir was about to try to figure out how to lure him over to him when he realized that Farhan seemed miraculously better now that he was outside and running around. Emir suddenly remembered a line from a book he had read a long time ago on goennecs. "They are herd animals and enjoy the company of others, preferably other goennecs, but they are compatible most other friendly species as well."
He must have been lonely, he thought as he watched Farhan desperately trying to keep up with the running foal, bleating at it to slow down.
I have an idea.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emir went to go talk with his father that same day. He asked and reasoned and begged and pleaded until, finally, his father agreed to let Farhan stay with Emira and her foal Aasifat in their stall so that he would have some constant companions.
.:Present:.Farhan seems to have the run of the farm now. At night, he sleeps with Emira and Aasifat, and during the day, he can be seen running all over the farm, visiting all of the animals. The mares and foals seem to enjoy his company, and the stallions, along with the goats and miniature horses that Emir's father keeps as companion animals for the horses, just seem to put up with his boundless energy. A few of them enjoy having the little goennec kid around, though, and one of them is a goat named Hadia, a pure white Nubian doe and the first goat to come to the farm. She is also the leader of the herd, and once she accepted Farhan, the rest of the goats followed suit. He's now free to come and go whenever he wants to, but he always makes sure to treat Hadia with the proper respect.
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Hadia's herd has all but adopted Farhan as one of them, and while Farhan is delighted to be able to play with other kids, he still misses his old herd. He misses being with other goennecs, and while Hadia is like a mother to him (or more of a grandmother), he still misses his real mother and often wonders if he'll ever see her again.
.:About the Farm:.With its farm located at the base of the mountains after which it is named, Hejaz Arabians is one of the world's leading breeders of Arabian racehorses. It has five opulent stables, one for stallions, one for mares, one for broodmares and their foals, one for horses for sale, and one for retired stallions and mares owned by the breeder. Also located on the property are a large and expansive goat pen and a smaller stable for miniature horses. Both animals are kept by the farm as companion animals for their racehorses. When a horse is sold, its companion usually goes with it.
Hejaz Arabians is known for its work on maintaining the purity of the breed and also for the beauty and speed of its horses. Many who buy a racehorse change their minds and decide to show the horse instead or train it in dressage.
Recently, it has become known as the first horse farm home to a goennec, a rare species of omnivore almost never seen in the wild, let alone on a farm. The goennec is said to be a companion animal to Aasifat, Hejaz Arabians' most promising young colt this year.
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