His disconnected mind made it difficult for him to tell if he spent the next few hours awake or asleep, but he was aware that the girl monster, at least, had given in to an exhausted slumber. Pegs stared vacantly at the hero’s crumpled body. Flies had begun to gather, and he noted with disinterest the contrast between their intricate flight patterns and mundane crawling.
Finally something inside him shifted in response to the sinking sun, and he nudged the girl awake, shoving his neck under her arms. She clung to him and managed, painfully, to drape herself across his back, crying softly the whole time.
“Thank you,” she whispered, over and over. “Thank you so much. Thank you…”
Pegs did not try to fly. He did not think she was strong enough to stay on. Instead he began to trudge slowly back towards the sea. It did not take a genius to realize that’s where this tentacled she-creature belonged. Before long he could smell it, and soon enough they crested a hill that brought them high enough to see it. The girl on his back drew in a sharp breath and dug her fingers more tightly into Pegs’s mane. He was pretty sure he felt claws, but they did not bother him. He continued trudging.
At last he stood at the edge of the sea, foam swirling about his fetlocks. He walked further out, until the waves were breaking against his chest, until the girl could slip from him into the salty embrace of her home without jarring her abused body. This she did, letting out a sigh of relief, but she kept one small hand twined in his mane. He walked out further still, until his hooves no longer touched, until he was swimming next to her. He watched the blood stains slowly spiral off her skin, and did not realize that he was leaving a trail of his own.
At some unspoken signal they both ceased their movements and surrendered to the water’s whims. It was a relief to let a force outside themselves take responsibility for a while, even if that force decided to drown them. Back and forth with the tide they rocked, touching lightly, saying nothing. Finally the girl unwound her fingers from his mane, kissed him tenderly on the neck, and dove away from him. She did not resurface, and eventually Pegs found himself washed back ashore.
It did not bother him until much later that he had not learned her name.
***
When Pegs returned to the mountain, his foster-mothers found him a much subdued creature. No longer did his heart burn with an unquenchable rage- or if it did, he could no longer feel it. Part of him- a large part- had gone numb with the crushing of the hero’s skull, and he took to spending long hours sitting by the tantrum spring, staring at his distorted reflection and wondering who and what he was meant to be.
He knew he was a winged horse- the only one of his kind, and likely to remain so. He knew that he was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan- cut off from his blood family, and likely to remain so. He was also mute- another thing not likely to change. But now he knew he was something else, too- he was a killer. He had killed. He, Pegs, had used his hooves to end a man’s life. He didn’t feel ashamed, exactly, but he didn’t feel particularly pleased about it, either. He doubted anyone would say it was wrong to have killed a man who was torturing an innocent creature, but did that make it right? He didn’t know, just as he didn’t know what it meant to his future, now that he was a killer. He assumed that was the sort of label that didn’t go away, regardless of whether or not he ever killed again. Regardless of whether or not anyone ever knew it but him and the girl with the tentacles. And, of course, the dead hero.
His foster mothers worried about his newfound listlessness, but he didn’t know how to reassure them- or even if he should. They took turns sitting next to him as he contemplated, trying to stir him with their songs, poetry, and dance. Ourie lay down next to him at night and told him stories about the stars scattered throughout the heavens, about how some of them had once been great men, women, or creatures the gods had rewarded by turning them into constellations. Pegs thought vaguely that it didn’t seem like much of a reward to him, but then he never did understand the motivations of the gods.
The gods.
Although he did not know it, one of those gods in particular- specifically one goddess- was very put out with Pegs, very put out indeed. And so, while Pegs was coming to grips with what who he was, what he’d done, and what his lonely place in the universe might be, she was coming up with a plan to rid him of any and all of those things.
Permanently.
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