The wind. The wind was loud and made noises in the trees. They made the animal spook and start as he ran through the brambles. They caught in his coat and scratched his legs. The shadows closed around him. 

Run.

He must run, as far and fast as he could before the tigers came and sank their paw-teeth into his flesh. He must run before the long snake caught his foot and sliced it. He must run until his back is soaked in sweat and his legs shook, back to home.

Home. There was a home, somewhere, but it was not the home with a warm box. It was not the home with the girl who sat on him and screamed like a tiger. It was not the home with the boy who put metal in his mouth and leather on his back.

Home was endless grass stretched far above the creature's head. It was another horse's hair caught in his teeth, and his feet making contact with flesh. It was mares and dirt and mud and play. It was not thea great many things he did not want to learn, and it was not boys with metal or girls with loud voices.

A noise rustled in the trees. He stopped short and snorted fire-air into his lungs. He must run. He must run from the tigers and the two-leg predators that sat upon his back. His feet left the ground, but not fast enough. 

"Se do!"

He screamed and rooted his legs to the ground like trees. The thick man grabbed at his face. He remembered the thick man. His voice was louder than the girl's, and angrier, but this was the first time directed at him. A bad man.

But he had forgotten the metal. It tore at the corners of his mouth as the man leaned on the snakes that led from his face. He pressed his weight backwards until his feet left the ground. The man pulled down and made him be still.

He fled, but could not flee. The metal snatched at the corners of his lips. His neck snaked out with teeth to grab the man's shoulder. 

Another man, this one shorter, this one he hadn't seen before. Grey hay-hair poking out of a hat. More noises he did not understand. Another man, this one with a dog. The dog bared its teeth and snapped. More horses. Men pointing at him, and then up the hill, in the direction he had come. The sweat dripped from his barrel. The man let the dog sniff the leather snakes. 

Escape.

His ears pricked forward, then flattened at the object in the man's hand. A skinny, long thing that glinted in the sun. He backed away from it, but the man yanked at his face again and forced him to be still.

Home. 

Run.

A sharp sound. A sting across his throat, and a wetness that followed. The sky turning, swirling in colors as it spun. Nothing.