MANA: Echoes

Just a quick little something.

The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

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It was funny how much the buckskin, an entire season later, still echoed Eddie Ne. His nose was deep in the corner of the stall, one large eye turned in her direction, peering at her from behind slumped shoulders. He was angry and confused and looking to pin the blame to her with one large round left hind hoof. To stamp his frustration into her chest in the shape of a shoe, or to throw the full weight of his body into hers, and the sooner he could tempt her beyond his stall door, the sooner he’d do it, and like Eddie Ne Santa was sure the horse would feel no remorse for getting a girl against a wall. Unlike Sweettalkin and Monique, or Ash snorting through his oats, or Timpanac flicking his tail from side to side, Subversive couldn’t be bought with peppermints, oatmeal cookies, and kisses. Subversive wanted her to come a little closer...or to leave him alone. None of it felt right.

“I think he wants you,” came a voice from the dark behind her. Santa turned and saw Randy Harada padding softly across the barn his long hair still pulled into a ponytail, a small earring glinting from one ear.

Santa sighed softly. “It’s not me, Sir. Not really.” She eyed the Suit standing there; a wealthy man pretending to be truly at ease among the shit-shovelers with hay in their hair. In his hand was a half smoked cigarette. That was new about him, and yet even that, held in his fingertips, straight and white, seemed too poised to be real. There was always something unnatural about Randy Harada; something too clean and too beautiful about him despite the earring and the long dark hair pulled into a straight neat line along the back of his neck. A cleanliness that made women think he just might be gay enough to be safe, as her own toughness made men think otherwise of her. When he came close, he even smelled like a contradiction, like a just maybe. A marriage of a dark expensive suit and a single earring.

“That’s a new smell for you, Mr. Harada,” Santa observed with a half raised eyebrow.

“Dolce and Gabana,” he answered, taking a quick puff of his cigarette. “Not really that expensive.”

“When did you start smoking?” Santa asked, watching him hold the stick between his lips. “And when did you start wearing something ‘not that expensive’?”

The man shrugged, the stiff shoulders of his suit straining against him. “Since the most valuable horse in my stable started losing.”

Santa sighed as Randy Harada brushed up alongside her to stare at the buckskin horse sulking half a stall away. “Well, he’s a bastard,” she reminded him, “what did you expect?”

“Oh, I expected as much from the Outlaw. I even expected as much from Eddie Ne. I guess I just didn’t expect the fire to go out of them both. A loss to prove a point, something out of spite or hatred or revenge. Something to do with Maggie. Not this. Not this desire to stand around and do nothing but threaten to punch me while simultaneously handing me the keys to the best piece of engineering you’ve ever owned. ”

Santa flinched. She knew what he meant. “You come here often then?”

Randy nodded. “Whenever the horse is stabled here. Yes. I stand here every night and wait for him to grab me with his teeth. But he never does.”

Santa turned and followed his gaze back to the horse. His ears were flat, his eyes were wide, but his nose was still pointed to the wall. “Maybe we should meet him halfway,” she suggested, offering to open the stall door.

“Don’t bother,” Randy waved his hand. “The day that horse crosses the divide to take a chunk out of my arm is the day I know he’s back. The drive to bite the hand that feeds you. That’s what divides the gods’ own champions from the mortals.”

“A lot of good that did Heracles.”

“I like to think he might be a little more like Achilles.”

“A lot of good that did Achilles.”

Randy smiled to himself and took another quick drag at his smoke.

“You won’t retire him then? The papers keep asking you to.”

“I know they are,” Randy scowled, “but I’m not giving him what he thinks he wants. It’ll make him complacent and lazy. That’s all it ever made him.”

“Subversive? Or Eddie Ne?” Santa asked.

Randy looked her in the eye. His gaze was unnerving. “What about you? What is it you want, Miss Castillo-Reyes, the Saint of Santa Anita? Do you want to ride the Outlaw?”

Santa spun on him, stunned. The responsibility of riding Eddie Ne’s horse, the triple crown winner...any sane jockey would have leapt at the chance, but Santa’s voice caught in her throat. “I can’t ride him,” she stammered, “he’s too much horse for me. I’d do worse than Ellie.”

“Good, then he’s yours in the Jockey Gold Cup.”

“He’s too much horse for me,” she repeated.

“You’ve gotten complacent, Santa,” Randy warned, “And a little lazy yourself. Don’t think I don’t see it.”

“Maybe,” Santa replied, “But I’m not wearing less expensive cologne either.”

Randy smiled at that and put out his cigarette, “You mean to say I shouldn’t be smoking in a barn.”

“Maybe not even smoking at all, Sir.”

“Good, then we’re agreed. Goodnight, Subversive.”

“Goodnight, boss,” Santa replied. And the buckskin horse gave a kick.


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