you're too young & eager to love

This was supposed to be so much better.
And more than, oh, three paragraphs or so. It was supposed to hint more at vampirism too, because, frankly, I like the image of a strong vampire taking down powerful, sleek horses. But, hey, there's always tomorrow to try again.

--


The horses are dead by morning.

Elodie finds the three of them, large and unmoving, in the second stable. She pulls her shawl closer; the temperature is mild, but her sickness is growing, speckling across her once pink lungs, and she discovers herself succumbing to a foreign coldness. She can feel the vulnerability starting in her veins, and it would frustrate her relentlessly if finding the lifeless animals had not shocked her into unfeeling.

Her mare is the only one bloodied. The large eyes are still stained with fright. Something like disgust rises in her long throat, touches the back of her tongue, and then she coughs so violently that her insides threaten to spill out. In a few moments, she recovers, but her knuckles are white where they clutch at her chest, holding tightly to the shawl. She is starting to smell the death of the horse, the stench that is fresh, sullying the hay, and it strikes a chord of fear in her. A fear that correlates with the slow betrayal of her body, and it infuriates her. If only her organs were as unrelenting as her will, she would conquer death.

Elodie contemplates harvesting the meat. Winter is nearby.

In the end, she burns the stable. She tells her father the horses were victims of equine influenza and that the smell in the air will not last long.