The Rain Forest Band

Name: Shirsana [sheer-sauna].
Gender: Mare.
Age: 4 years.
Mate: None.
Foals: None.
Herd: None.

History:
[This story is told at a later age. Also, keep in mind this anaconda is more like 70 feet long; capable of dragging a horse, as I have done in this story. C: Obviously fiction.]
Anaconda lines © Anaconda [movie]

It was never supposed to be like this.

From birth my mother would twine exotic tales of the rainforests that surrounded our homelands, whispering praise into my ear for the predators that staked their lives there. Every few days I could catch a fleeting glimpse of one; the reflecting glint of the polished black panther pelt, the shimmering gaze and slow coils of the giant snakes that haunted the very depths of the jungles. I was in love with this place; the magic that saturated the trees and dripped from the branches. I decided that one day I would be the first one to walk all the way through and see just what sort of paradise lay on the other side.

Unfortunately, not many members of my small herd shared the same opinion as me. Although my dam too loved the jungle and its inhabitants, she was not a brave mare, and she was growing sickly in her adulthood. My father was the lead stallion, and his main concerns were keeping the herd on a whole safe; which meant he ignored my pesky dreams and just assumed I wouldn’t go. Some of the other younglings would poke fun at me and call me twisted names, like I was insane to hope for this; but there was a single other colt in the herd, Ramses, that looked at me like I had potential.

Our friendship was tedious, but slowly, so slowly, we began to trust one another. He shared in me the dreams he had of this place while we would lay on the edge of the jungle and look within; he told me he had inclinations to go in too, but his mother had always begged with him to promise not to. I would puff out my chest every time, boldly lift my head, and grin at him, saying that nobody was as courageous as me. I trusted that I would be capable of getting through the rain forest.

On the night of my yearling birthday, my mother caught a cough. The local witch healer had warned her that if she ever got a separate illness she would have very low chances of surviving it; and although I stayed with her day and night, and brought her all the supplies I could carry, she drifted away into oblivion.

I became withdrawn after that, a recluse. When Ramses came looking for me, I made excuses, and told him that I was busy that day; I needed to speak to my father, or I had made a promise to come visit the healer. He began to understand that I just wanted to be alone, and stopped trying to come see me. I spent more and more time with one foot into the rain forest and three feet out.

I figured it would be safest to explore the realm during the early morning, so I crept away from the herd at the pinnacle of dawn. I told myself I would just venture in a few feet and look around, scout for any food sources nearby and come back to the herd a hero, having discovered a bold green plain of thick grasses or a naturally growing hedge of barley. I didn’t think either was particularly hopeful to spot, but I didn’t care. I was growing reckless in my abandonment of normal life.

The forest welcomed me with open arms and I found the day slipping past and my hooves stepping further. I lost sight of the edge of the jungle at all; I dove deep into this mystical land and forgot all about the coltish friend I had left behind.

Spending the night in the forest, I awoke to the brutal calls of my name. They were distant, barely tangible; but I recognized the voice, and immediately I clumsily jerked to my feet and ran to get him. “Ramses!” I remembered shouting back as I raced to try and find him; I was so excited o see my friend again and show him just how far I had come.

What I came upon though, was not the colt I remembered. He had grown in his days; he was tall, proud, regal. He eyed me with a faint frown as I galloped to a stop in front of him and twitched my tail back and forth, my entire skin tingling with the excitement of this entire day. “Ramses! Look how far I’ve gotten!” I purred, and turned to show him; only to look straight into the façade of death.

One of my mother’s favorite stories had always been that of the great and beautiful anaconda. The largest snake in the jungle, it had been named the King; and there were even some stories swamping the herd that perhaps the local villagers believed in them being a god themselves. Its amber eyes shined as it looked me over, one quick flickering glance at Ramses behind me, who had stood stock still at its encounter. I had yet to come across one of these in my explorations; in fact, the only time I had ever even seen one was when my mother had first told me the story of its murders.

“What is that?” The air felt like honey; it seemed like it took forever for the question to reach my ears. I grinned.

“The anaconda.” The angular head turned an inch towards me as though lured by its named, and I recited the lines I remembered. “Anacondas are the perfect killing machine. They strike, wrap around you, hold you tighter then your true love, and you get the privilege of hearing your bones break before the powerful embrace causes your veins to explode.”

The serpent seemed to take amusement at my words and one thick coil slammed against the ground as it dropped from its place on the branches. But it completely ignored me; I didn’t dare to move my feet and its enormous body slithered between my legs. A slow breath drew out of my throat and I half-closed my eyes, literally listening to death choose not to attack me.

But that was when I heard the gasp and I spun around to look; what I saw will forever be scarred through my mind. Ramses stood open-mouthed and sucking in air, for the mouth of the snake was buried against his throat. Coils began to suffocate my friend and I leaped forward, striking my flint hooves against the natural scales. It rattled my leg and the snake didn’t budge; if anything, the back half of its body began to rip them both into the jungle. Ramses stumbled and dropped to his knees and the anaconda crawled through the thick underbrush.

I could tell there was nothing I could do. I stood there, my adrenaline racing and my mind still in shock, and watched the beast drag my unconscious best friend away.

Years have passed. I have lived in the jungle as the beast I have become. I have spent days searching for Ramses, and I am unwilling to give up on him possibly being alive. The herd has long forgotten us; occasionally I will step out of the rain forest and graze with them, and although they eye me with suspicion, the elders still recall my old membership and allow me to rejoin. I check often to see if perhaps one of them has stumbled across him, dead or alive.

The anacondas stalk me. I have not seen the ancient, old one that stole away Ramses again, but its younglings are my companions. I have lost my fear of the serpents; they do not ever act aggressive towards me or open their spindly, bare mouths and taunt constriction. Sometimes when night falls and the gem-eyed snakes come out of hiding, I will spin my greedy audience the same stories my mother used to tell me.

My old herd calls me the Serpent Mare. Occasionally I almost can hear the snakes hiss the name I have almost forgotten. “Shirsana… Shirsana… Shirsana…”

name: Ramses.
pronounced: [ram-sis].
known as: The Phantom Stag.
gender: Male.
herd: None.
species: Equine.

personality:
Even as a colt, Ramses always had an eye on Shirsana. He had a puppy crush on her throughout childhood, and he was there for her when, eventually, her mother passed in sickness. He admitted to the filly his dreams of entering the local rainforest himself, but when push came to shove, and Shirsana slipped away during the middle of the night, his thoughts focused primarily on finding and retrieving her, and no longer on his silly dreams of escaping himself. Eventually he matured; and he realized that there was no way to escape the mundane cycles of herd life.
But it was then that everything changed. When he finally found Shirsana, and honestly planned on professing his love to her, he was snatched away by a giant serpent. He has spent years wandering the seemingly endless forest, searching for the mate he half-believes is already dead. Because he was knocked out when he was stolen away, he does not remember the day at all; only waking up with a pounding headache and the itch of snake coils against his skin.
Being separated through all those long months has hardened the stallion, and where there used to be a childish compassion, there is only further obsidian. He is not strictly cruel, but he will not go out of his way to help others; he has a destiny of finding Shirsana and joining her again, as even when destiny took him away, he still feels a undying love for the lost mare. This has impacted his personality as he is quiet, remorseful, and even when he encounters the other herds that roam the rainforest, he stays only long enough to scan for her. His instincts buckle against his actions and will him to just join one, that it cannot be all that bad to stay and settle down with another, pretty mare, but he refuses. Ramses has only ever wanted to do one thing in his life this bad; and it has always been the same goal.

backstory:
My childhood was perhaps the most normal of all the foals in the herd. The elders paid no particular attention to me; my mother was merely a broodmare that existed within our ranks and had little power anywhere. None of us knew who my father was; but it didn’t matter much, since obviously I was a colt, and I was destined to be removed from the herd’s atmosphere.

So I grew without the pressure of a mother who loved me or a sire that drove me to make him proud. Instead, I was possibly the laziest around; and that only changed the day I stumbled across Shirsana.

I have played with the idea that it was fate all along. Our herd was just large enough to make it difficult to know all the members; but even I had been aware that the lead stallion’s favorite mate had just recently had a filly. My mother encouraged me to stop by and offer my services as a playmate, and although I resisted for a few months, my curiosity won out in the end.

The filly had been small, so delicate and thin-legged that I immediately felt the urge to protect her. Over the next months we grew very close, and the time came that we were inseparable. But with all the time I spent at her side, I watched as her mother grew sicker and sicker and quietly died; and our friendship broke. Shirsana became distant and quiet, and rarely could I rouse a conversation out of her. Softly, she asked me to leave her alone for a while, and like everything she asked me to do, I did it.

I gave her space for a long time, but I began noticing her expeditions into the rainforest. Frankly, it scared me; I didn’t understand the depth of my emotions towards her but I understood that I wanted her safe. I resisted my urge to drag her back from the forest and tried to forget about it, but my gaze continually wandered to her presence to make certain she was back every foggy morning.

Then came the day that I had dreaded for months. The morning when I came to her familiar, favored spot beneath the weeping branches of a willow and found that she hadn’t been there all night. My heart jumped in my throat and I dove into the forest to try and find her, chasing shadows and nightmares. I screamed and bellowed her name, desperate to uncover my friend; and choking on adrenaline that promised me she had been captured and eaten.

But Shirsana had bounded out of the trees a few hours later and right smack into me, and I had nuzzled her and was about to admit how much I had missed her when the snake arrived. I didn’t notice it for a few seconds; but as soon as I saw that building expression of intense passion, fear, and interest in Shirsana’s eyes I knew what it could be. The most dangerous predator that lurked in the shadows; the serpent that Shirsana had loved as a child. I swallowed and turned to look into the milky stare of an anaconda that was impossibly long, thirty feet, glistening with wet scales and predator focus.

Shirsana said something about the snake that to me seemed muted and I watched as the thing dropped its coils from the tree and slammed into the ground. Its weight was so enormous that the branches trembled and a few emerald leaves drifted down around us like green hail. My skin itched and my breath burned every time it wheezed out of my throat, but I watched it slither beneath Shirsana and all the tension left me; it would not eat her. My Shirsana was free to live as recklessly as she had before for yet another day.

It took me a few minutes to recognize that it had overlooked the black mare for my more appetizing, larger form. I didn’t even feel the first touch of the thing, curling around my ankles; and it was only when it flung itself around my haunches that I panicked. But it was too late; the snake had gotten too much of a hold on me. It squeezed me around the barrel of my ribcage and I lost my breath to scream.

It was when that I noticed Shirsana was striking at it with her hooves, but it did little damage. The snake jerked forward, heading into the underbrush and I fell to my knees, gasping for air past the pressure of the body that suffocated me. I looked up and met Shirsana for just one second, my mouth parted to say something, when I lost consciousness.

When I came too, it was leagues away. The snake was gone. My body was unscathed. It has been years since the anaconda abandoned me in the pit of the rainforest, and I have wandered that entire time, searching for Shirsana.

The small herds that dwell within the rainforest whisper when I come past. A faint limp was consumed my back leg, but it doesn’t hamper my smooth, floating gait; and the dark intensity of my gaze, focused on something faraway and fantastical, makes them pause in their wildfire rumors. They call me the Phantom Stag. Sometimes I will weave within their midst and plead with them to tell me they have caught a hint of my true love, the single topic that consumes me day and night.

Their gazes are apologetic when they shake their heads, their tones piteous when they admit no one has. I leave their homes and go further, unwilling to give up. I am certain she is out there somewhere, waiting for me to find her. I know that even now she searches for me.

In the darkness of the night, the nightmares consume me like fire. No one hears my screams as I watch a thousand ways Shirsana could have died in the canvas of my mind. When I wake, the rainforest is silent; and a hundred set of amber eyes from shimmering anacondas watch me with their expressionless mouths and their edgy, flickering tongues. The snakes leave me be. Some nights I wonder if perhaps my nightmares make them too afraid to come near me, but mostly I let myself live in the fantasy that Shirsana’s fairytales have stroked through even their serpentine minds and they allow me to live only for the entertainment of their mistress.

name: Summerset.
pronounced: [sum-er-sett].
known as: The Painted Catalyst.
gender: Female.
herd: None.
species: Equine.

It is said on the plains where rain forests once grew a mare made of lightning and passion runs. She is a beautiful figure comprised of nature and sometimes, when machines idle too long on the edge of the Amazon, the crew will awaken to find the vehicles ruined and the cords too tangled to be used again and when they throw their fist to the sky to bellow their anger, all they find is the amusing whicker of the blue-eyed sprite who watches them from afar. And before they gather their wits to give chase, she has disappeared again, fading into the rain forest that cherishes her vengeance.
One man calls her Summerset, for he swears that long ago his daughter rode a horse by the same name and appearance in a civilized farm far away. But the workers call her something different; and she as flees she rejoices in the bellows of her name... The Painted Catalyst.

personality:
[wip]

backstory:
My life began as a fairytale and unfurled into a perfect rendition of Cinderella. I was born on a farm tucked into the corner of Kentucky, a place infamous for its slaughter houses and the treatment of overlooked horses. My dam was merely a broodmare, nothing more, and as custom I was separated from her early. In my childhood I suffered in this place and quelled my rebellious nature, assuming there was no need for it. If my owner lay a hand on me at all, it was not a stroke but a striking blow.

By the time I was three years old, he had done a test on me to find if it was possible I become a next breeder to him, to produce more foals for the dog food industry. Unfortunately, the end product of that test was negative; I was barren, for whatever reason, and by then my usefulness to him died.

Feeling as though he had been cheated out a profit for a mare he had waited three years for, he instantly threw me to the nearest bidder; but this is where my life changed, for she was not the cruel boss of a certain brand of hell, but instead a young mother hoping for her daughter's first horse. It was mere luck that she chose me; a bland palomino appaloosa coated in muck and downtrodden. I had no spirit in me then.

She loaded me into the truck and brought me to the farm I spent three more healthy years on, and it was here I became the mare I am today. My independent lent me a headstrong attitude but I had a certain affection for this little girl I had been chosen for her and she for me... and we spent long days together under the apple orchards of her parents, where she would braid my mane and brush my coat until it shined. She forced me to see the beauty in myself when no one else had been unable to uncover the jewel before.

But it is said that all good things must come to an end, and the girl got sick. Her treatments were costly and physically taxing, and it got bad enough that she didn't even have the strength to visit me. I grew temperamental in my pasture, kicking the fence, taking out my anger on the other horses they had collected. No one paid me any heed; and after being worshiped, I was painfully reliving my early memories of abandonment.

Eventually my panic gave way and I bolted when the father came in the morning to feed us. His energy had been stolen by his daughter's treatment, as though he was undergoing the same illness as her; and I escaped easily, fleeing into the wild tangled forests of their country land. He yelled after me but it was too late, for I was gone, a phantom within these trees; the one place I had ever felt safe.

But I was unused to being free and I sullenly returned to the ranch after months spent away, hollowed out, tepid again. I did not notice how quiet it was; it somehow escaped me that the presence of the other horses was missing, and the men who creeped across the grounds did not belong here. In fact, it took me about an hour to realize that they were common thieves; and by then they had stolen even me.

I was taken to a truck where the other livestock were and shipped across an ocean. I remember the smell of the sea and the fear that the other horses stank of; but this was an adventure to me, an expedition. I swallowed my regret and focused on the now.

The men sold us to the tribes that lived on this island, and when we stepped off, I found peacefully that the village was right up against a rain forest. It was different then the ones in America, but immediately it calmed me; something familiar in this land of everything new. I loved the vivid colors the forest lent to our enclosure and was calm when they led us to our new pasture. The other horses reeked of adrenaline, but my eyes wandered only to the small, glittering gazes of the forest mammals that surveyed these new arrivals.

Instantly, I was entranced with this place. They managed to keep me for only a single week; within days, I was smoldering with the urge to escape, to get into this forest, the one sanctuary I had ever known. My first owner had expected me to be dog food; my second had left me and disappeared. It was only right now that I be unowned forever, and a violent kick at our feeder allowed me entrance to the jungle.

Their yells followed me for days, but in here, I was free; and I evaded their blundering attempts to capture me and when I grew confident in my atmosphere, I would linger on the edges of plains until they saw me, an instant insult to their grand hunting skills. This game eventually grew tiresome and I left their lands, traveling for miles, for days. I walked when I saw fit; I ate the vegetation that grew as free here as I did and although some made me sick, I quickly learned at sight which ones I could digest and survive on.

My mane and tail grew without scissors and within a year I was just another phantom within these tall trees. I started coming across other herds out here, a vivid collection of mares and stallions from all different places, and I loved hearing their stories and their pasts; but none of them welcomed me quite like the embrace of the jungle and I would slowly begin fading back into it, defenseless against the lure it offered me.

Their came the day I stumbled across a young mare named Shirsana, a wild little thing with a spitfire attitude and markings that looked like snakes. She said she was looking for someone, a stallion, and although I gave her my pity I had no information; but then, a month later, I came across a lone male at a watering hole.

Our conversation was sparse in the beginning but when he mentioned he was Ramses, I was fueled with passion. This was the stallion she was so desperately searching for, and when I whinnied my joy and begged him to come with me, he was confused, but hopeful. There is little to trust in the rain forest but the insane tales of strangers, and so he followed me to where I recalled meeting his mate.

This was where I intruded no further. When we walked into the deeper recesses of the jungle, where Shirsana stood, I went back to the trees and left them to their reunion. For a while, life was happy; every once and a great while I would come across the couple again, and they loved me from bringing them together. Sometimes we would spend idle days together; but the company of horses could no longer sate me. It was only the wilderness the jungle offered that could calm me and so I returned to its hold again and again, comfortable only there.

The day came where I found loggers, and I could hear their ugly machines cutting into these fierce trees that had once protected me; and I was so overwhelmed with hate for these ignorant humans that I felt the need to punish them. I waited until darkness fell and crept into their camp, damaging any exposed tools I could, leaving behind a destructive path of their expensive equipment.

I was reminded of the game I played long ago with the villagers that had bought me; but this time the winning prize was much better. So I struck havoc with these workers, and they began to know my name and my face; they could tell me from all the other horses in the forests for I was the one with the jungle eyes.

They began calling me the Painted Catalyst... I wallowed in the feeling of righteousness for the days to come.