Pegs grew swiftly under the somewhat eccentric care of Benthie’s creative kin. By the time he was six months old, his stubby little wings had begun to fill in with feathers, and he took great delight in flapping them furiously, in spite of the fact that they were nowhere near large enough to support him. His color began to lighten, until, by age two, he was a pure and snowy white, save for his golden hooves and liquid black eyes. It was around this age that the most mischievous of his foster-mothers, Thalie, pushed him off the mountain’s edge.
(Thus it was he learned to fly.)
Pegs loved all his many, many foster-mothers (yes, even when they were endangering his equine frame ‘for his own good’): they were lovely, smart, and funny, and taught him many wonderful things about the world and its inhabitants. They filled his life with beauty and wonder- but he longed for his brother Chrys, whom he never forgot. When he was feeling particularly low about it he would go and sit with his foster-mother Mellie, who could be counted on to fully commiserate with him in miserable silence. The misery was expressed in silence because Pegs never did develop the ability to speak; in fact, he was borderline mute. He could snort, grunt, and even hiss- but he could not articulate even a single word-like sound. Not even the whinny of a normal horse. It was something he found profoundly frustrating, although he became quite adept at conveying meaning through body language and intense stares. The muses, mistresses of communication all, never had any difficulty understanding him- although Pollie was prone to expressing regret that he would never be able to sing praises to the gods- something which usually prompted the rough-and-tumble Borie to punch her.
Pegs privately thought he’d never sing the praises of the gods even if he had a voice. Thanks to Kallie's epic poetry, he knew that it was the war-goddess who was responsible for his mother’s curse, and that she had probably outfitted and sent the ‘hero’ that slew her. He also knew that his father was a sea god- and that he had done nothing to save his mother. Pegs watched from hidden places when other gods came to visit his foster-mothers, and although they were bright and beautiful beyond mortal comprehension, devastatingly charming and occasionally quite generous, he saw nothing particularly redeeming about them. As far as he could tell, they were selfish, spoiled, and prone to deadly tantrums.
Not that he, himself, was immune to tantrums. In fact, that was part of Thalie’s motivation in her impromptu “flight lesson”. The day before, he had gotten so angry that he had stamped his hoof in blind fury, much harder than he ever had in the past. It shattered the rock beneath him, and a great spring shot forth, soaking him and all his foster-mothers before carving out a path down the mountainside. Once it was established that he could fly, they began to insist that he flutter his wings to avoid stepping too hard.
“I mean, the little springs you’ve made while prancing about are one thing-” said Klio while watching the water surge down to the plains far below. “Our gardens and groves were never so green or lush before you came- but we really can’t have you making any more like this one. You’ll wash us all away, and then where would our mortal supplicants be?”
Pegs didn’t know, and didn’t much care: as far as he could tell, mortals were just like the gods- although fortunately without powers (really they managed more than enough mischief as it was). It seemed to him that the monsters, the semi-divine, and the half-breeds tended to turn out best- although of course many of the half-breeds grew up to be gods-pandering “heroes”.
Still, he did do his best to avoid any more rage-fueled stamping. Instead he began taking long, strenuous flights to work out his bouts of temper.
It was during one such flight that he had his first real encounter with a hero.
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