Wild Heart

You were a spindly child of eight or nine the night you first came into my woods. You had stolen away from your sleeping hamlet to see for yourself if the stories of my existence were true. I spied you through gaps between the gnarly, epiphytic roots of a balete tree from the grove where I was resting as you walked up the path, holding before you in one hand and cupping with the other a pearl of light: a small, brave glow in the deep gloom of the forest.

As you came closer, I moved behind another tree, taking no care to avoid rustling the leaves on the ground. I meant to signal my presence, to presage the terror I was about to loose upon you. There was no question of mating with you, since you were too young to have borne my child, so what remained was to stalk you, harry you from behind the trees and the branches above, taunt and hunt you until your heart pounded in your head from the running and the fear and you were so turned around and lost you could not find your way back. And yes, I meant to chase you down in the end and trample you into the earth, since you seemed so small and helpless.

But you heard me stirring in the grove and, instead of fleeing, stood still and peered in my direction, holding out your tiny flame and trying to make me out in the black, tangled mass of tree trunks and hanging vines. You could not see me. I with my nocturnal eyes was caught by yours: dark and shining, curious and questing. I snorted loudly and pawed the ground to see if that would change your expression. You stepped forward, cocking your head from side to side, still trying to catch a glimpse of me. I forewent all thought of hunting you then and stepped out from behind the tree, to see if your seeming courage was true. I stretched to my full height and walked towards you until I stood towering over you, the hot breath from my nostrils falling upon you like a haze.

You looked up at me in wild-eyed wonder. You must have been afraid then, for you dropped your candle and I could hear your heart pulsing madly in your bird-like body. You knew that in my hands and my hooves was your death, the likely price you would have to pay for your curiosity. Yet you stood your ground and did not flinch. And I knew then that here was a creature who was even fiercer than I.

I bowed, turned around, and stooped to the ground. After a moment’s confusion, you understood and clambered upon my back. I galloped deep into the forest and up the tree branches, the wind and the leaves whipping our faces as I leaped from limb to limb under the stars. My booming neighs and your joyous screams carried over glen and glade, terrifying what forest creatures were about. We ran till near daybreak, when I brought you to the outskirts of your village, so you could slip back home and catch a little sleep before the light crept into the sky.

You came to me many, many nights afterwards, whenever you could escape your daylight world – and it was never often enough for me. You grew taller and sturdier as the years went by, though of course you remained minuscule compared to me, and no burden at all as I bore you on our midnight runs. Indeed, at times it felt as if you were the one carrying me on those wild flights, the beating of your heart against my back the hoofbeats that drummed our passage.

Sometimes when we stopped to drink from a pool of water or rest on a mossy crook between branches, you would whisper to me of your desire to go even farther than our gallops could take you; to mount steeds faster than me that would sweep you away from your village, past the towns in the plain, through the heavens and over the waters that ringed our island, to distant lands you longed to see. Perhaps you thought since I could not speak your tongue I did not understand your words, and therefore felt free to entrust me with your dreams. But I did understand. And I knew from the start you were not a creature to be confined to one place, not even the vast forest though which we bounded. Who knew better than I how untamable you were? Still, it pained me to hear your schemes of going beyond where I could take or follow you.

When you turned twelve, I plucked the thickest spine from my bristly mane and gave it to you. I knew your people believed that such an object was an anting-anting, a talisman that binds the will of a creature like me into servitude – which was ridiculous, of course. Who among your people could have come upon one of us unawares, or leapt upon our backs to take a spine against our will? And were this even possible, why should obtaining it have rendered us helpless and witless? It’s just hair. But it was right that I should give it to you – not as some magical device with which to tether me to you, but as a token that I already was. You fastened it to a loop of twine that you wore around your neck, and you swore you would keep it with you, always.

As you grew into a woman, your visits became fewer and fewer, until one night, you held me tight about my neck before dismounting, then walked away without a word or backward look.

Since then the world has changed beyond recognition. The towns have spread across the plain like mold on a fallen bole, until your little hamlet was overrun and my forest encroached upon. Countless trees have been felled and swaths of woodland cleared and overlaid with farms and roads and the dwellings of men. Something wicked this way comes, from all sides. Your people are still unable to catch more than a glimpse of me – I have not lost my swiftness and I can still vanish into the trees before they can come near – yet more and more I am hemmed in. Now I am the one who is harried, I am the one whose way is lost. It has been many, many years now since you left, and I can barely keep alive the spark that I cup in my heart: the hope that you will yet return before your world closes itself on me like a fist.

Oh, I know you will not be coming back. Why should you, who are free to roam the endless earth? I would not, if I had the same chance as you to fly away. But if it is foolishness to long for your return, then allow me to hold on to this much at least: I hope you have kept the gift I gave you; I hope it reminds you of me sometimes; I hope it continues to see you safe.

(April 2012)

tikbalang by cownose