His pelt blends with the dead grass of the prairie, his speckles and extremities with the gentle snow steadily coating the landscape. His mane and tail a dark corpse against the pale background, shifting in the wind, in the way that the dead’s fur tends to. His tail jerks to swat at a fly that isn’t there—the only sign of life for as far as he can see from his perch atop the hill.

The sky grows dimmer far above his head, the haze of the sun through the ever-present stratus clouds beginning its slow descent below the horizon. For a few fleeting seconds, a rare break in the clouds passes over the setting sun, a beacon of light managing to escape its containment and beam at Extorris as if in pride at the work he’s done.

“Fuck you!” he shouts back at the sun, voice cracking with the strain of sudden use, like a rusted cog beginning to turn for the first time in centuries. 

The star glares back at him, but says nothing. It always says nothing.

And, just as quickly as it had grinned at him, it winks, before disappearing completely behind the snow-clouds again. 

He snorts, irritated and alone.

Always irritated. Always alone.

His eyes track the sun’s clouded light, in much the same way a sheepdog’s eyes track its flock, willing it to finish its descent in what could be considered a threat if he weren’t a horse and the sun weren’t a star. And it obeys—slowly, surely, obediently—but his eyes never stray, as if the second they did, the sun would halt just to spite him and him alone.

And then, darkness settles itself on the prairie, whipping the wind into a fiercer gust as the first chill of Night sets in. 

The night is just as silent as the day here, this land too cold, too barren, too dead to support the insects and amphibians and birds that Extorris remembers from his foalhood. The only sounds tonight are the quiet crackling of dried grass as snow piles up heavy enough to snap stems, and the muted howling of winds picking up speed. Even Extorris’s ragged breaths are silent, carried away by the impending snowstorm in blatant warning that he, too, should flee. The blizzard to come will be a wicked, monstrous thing. ‘This storm will bury you alive,’ the snow seems to whisper, lashing at his skin with stings worse than any hymenopteran as a final attempt to scare him off.

He adjusts his position—not to bolt, but to lie down, legs growing numb near-immediately at the freezing cold of the snow packing itself around him.

Tonight is the Harvest Moon.

And, just like each Harvest Moon before it, Extorris summons a storm to block its light, shielding the prairie from the Harvester’s vengeful eye. 

“I am the storm,” he whispers back to the wind, a challenge to the snowflakes pelting him in worry, an assurance that he is in control of his own fate. 

The snow begins to drown him, and he makes himself as comfortable as he can in spite of it.

And then, his eyes flutter shut, and consciousness slips away from him.