We’re going to die
You can’t change that.
His head turns, first from one side, and then to the other, before his gaze settles downwards. He is laying, relaxed, half upon his side and half upon his belly, golden toes barely gracing the water of the glassy pool he looks into.
The white mare, or is it best to call her a doe? Looks upon him in silence, though her brow is quirked just a bit.
He bears the easy air he always does, the peace that falls over dying creatures, when they know they are to die, and have accepted this fact.
Her expression is of the mourner who has nothing to lament as of yet, but knows that someday, soon maybe, they will.
He speaks, just as she begins moving towards him, which causes her to stop for half of a moment before regaining her pace, standing beside the laying stallion-buck.
“What is the greater good?” his words are repeated for her sake now that she is nearer.
“I believe it’s what is best for the many, even if the few must lose something” she replies, a voice like honey, or time, endless.
“What makes those many, so much greater than those few?” he continues, he looks blind, with those flat golden eyes of his, but that is not the case, he sees, too much sometimes. “Who is the judge of that? One who might gain much? Someone who will lose much? Or someone who isn’t affected?” the ripples in the pool spread outwards, she watches them.
“I don’t know” she replies at last, brow furrowing a bit more. ‘Nothing’ she wants to say, ‘sheer numbers’. But she doesn’t. Because in the end, she really doesn’t know either, those are opinions, nothing else. Opinions she doesn’t even agree with.
“If I killed off a town, a city, a nation, a planet, even a galaxy, to save myself. Who gets to say whether that’s right? They would say it was wrong, beastly” his lips turn upon his muzzle, something more than a frown, but not quite a scowl.
“But why, who are they to judge, they’re all so small!” he rises, on delicate legs, for a moment, one threatens to give beneath him, he is having a bad day it seems, ‘bad’ in that his health is showing itself.
“A town, a city, what are they to a nation, a nation, what is a nation to a world, and what is a world to a galaxy? A rock, hurtling through space, and time, through the universe, it’s so small”
She smiles just a little, but her brown eyes are sad, so sad. “Beloved…” she speaks his name, with the tone of a mother, a lover, a friend, all curled and coiled into one being. More than that. There aren’t words.
“The universe, each one, is only one of many. In the grand scheme of things, insignificant.” he gazes at her. “Hum…” her name on his lips. “There is no greater good, just numbers, just statistics who want to live, to cling to life, everyone thinks their life is the ‘greater’ good”
Their eyes meet, and she can see universes dying in his eyes. He can see himself dying in her eyes.
“What will you do?” the mare-doe, Hum, asks. She knows the answer, it’s the same every time, and she raises her head, steels her body, because if she doesn’t, his answer will make her cry.
“I will continue on, until the day comes when I cease to exist. I am small. There is no greater good for me. I will be forgotten”
She smiles at him, a shaky reassuring smile. “And I’ll be there at your side, every step of the way”
His head moves in the smallest of nods, turning to retreat from the pool. And she is there, not at his heels, but at his side, one of black. One of white. And both of gold.
And she pretends she didn’t hear, all that pain and all that fear, trembling in his voice.
