*mild spoilers for The Village*

Credit Ellowyne for writing the Hedgewick story and inspiring me to do this.

I give you horsie Mordred *flourishes and steps back*

***

Once, in a tiny hollow in a tiny pasture on a tiny farm, a colt was born. He got excited and distracted very easily, and often wandered into parts of the pasture where it was unsafe to go. He wanted to cuddle his mother, but when he tried to give her a kiss she huffed and kicked up her heels and trotted away. "Too busy! Too busy!" she said. "Such a bother!" And every time he trotted after her, she huffed again and trotted away much faster than he could keep up.

So the colt said to himself, "Nobody likes cuddles. They are all much too busy. I will stop trying."

But... in the tiny hollow in the tiny pasture on the tiny farm, another colt was born. He was tiny and spindly, and unlike any animal the older colt had ever seen. "This one will like cuddles," he said. "And he needs them, or else he will be hurt because he is so small."

So he gave all his cuddles to the small colt, and tried to always stay very close by, though sometimes he forgot and wandered off when he saw something exciting. When this happened, he was often hurt. But he told himself he was too big and strong to be hurt, and so he stopped noticing when he was hurt. Instead, he cried when the small colt was hurt; because the small colt, he said to himself, was not big enough and strong enough to be fine.

One day, he said to the small colt, "We are going to a place where it is not as easy for people to hurt you."

So they traveled and traveled for a very long time, until they came to another farm. This one was bigger and a great deal cleaner, although the pasture that the colt chose to stay in was tiny just like their old one.

The colt met a dog in the new pasture. The dog was long-haired and very friendly, but the colt had never met anybody other than the small colt who wanted cuddles, and he did not believe that the dog would want them. "He is just like everyone else," he said. "He will think I am a bother."

The colt also met a swan. The swan noticed the small colt and said, "He looks like he would like cuddles."

"She is just like everyone else," said the colt. "She will hurt him because he is small." And he was very angry and tried to stop the swan from getting to the small colt.

But he was too late and the swan cuddled the small colt very gently and said, "I am sorry people tried to hurt you."

The colt did not know what to say at all now. He was sorry for being angry, but he was not used to saying sorry and felt very confused. So instead he gave the swan a kiss.

"I am sorry people tried to hurt you, too," the swan told him, and she was not angry with him for kissing her.

"I'm not hurt," said the colt. "I'm fine." But he was not so sure anymore.

The dog returned. He kept coming back, even though the colt told him to go away. "I know you do not want me to go away," said the dog. "You need cuddles and friends. So I will stay right here."

Then the colt found a sheep. The sheep was very nervous and bashful, and even though he was not as small as the small colt, the colt said to himself, "He is small on the inside and he needs friends." And as he became better friends with the sheep, he forgot to keep telling the dog to go away. Slowly, he began to feel better, until the day came when he realized to his surprise that he had used to be very hurt.

"But now I feel much better," he said. "And it is because of the dog and the swan and the sheep. They will never run away from me. They are my home."

And after that, even when he was hurt or lonely, the colt remembered that he had a home.

Always.

***

Is it bad that I want to own this entire thing in a printed book format with sketchy inked illustrations

In case anyone wanted a key:

the colt = Mordred

small colt = Fenris

dog = Braegon

swan = Fiona

sheep = Therelane