A Different Background

17 hands tall, pure white stallion with a black patch covering his left eye. Blue eyes, with a ratty tail and half dread-locked mane.  Bony and thin, but still holds himself with a certain power.  

Gerato is a dark, messed up stallion, hardened from years of pain and misery.  Although not a cruel horse at heart, very few ever get to see a soft side to him.  Bitter and cold, it truly takes some effort to get through to him.

Gray clouds mingled above the earth, like whisps of smoke blowing in the wind.  Delicate, skeleton-like trees climbed high, towering over the bleak picture of a nearby meadow.  All of the color seemed to have been drained from the surroundings; even though it was sunrise, the energy was missing.  The yellowed, frost bitten grass lay flat and cold against the ground, fluttering slightly in the occasional light breeze.  A creek was babbling slowly somewhere off in the distance, and an occasional crow cawed quietly, as if to not disturb the dead, pained silence that engulfed everything nearby. 

Alone equine wandered aimlessly around, tripping occasionally over even the smallest of pebbles.  The stallion was tall, but rather ill looking; his skin stretched tight over his skeleton, his blue eyes were dull and sunken into his skull, and his tail hardly qualified as a tail anymore.  The studs white coat was matted and covered in patches of thick mud, and the tips of Gerato's whiskers were frosted.  Of course, the great stag wasn't always this way.  Once upon a time, he was a glorious, powerful beast, with carved muscles rippling under his pelt and a bright glow in his eyes.  Once upon a time, he was happy, with a family and a future.  Once upon a time, he even had land of his own, and a herd to look after.  But now, once upon a time seemed to be just a memory of a memory. 

Gerato gazed solemnly forward, ghosts haunting his vision, phantom figures fading in and out of sight.  He hadn't had water in two days, and his tongue felt like a leather flap in his mouth.  The sound of water somewhere nearby caught his attention, and as he stumbled slowly towards it, Gerato noticed a faint outline of another equine standing near the tree line.  Brushing it off as just another madness-induced figment of his imagination, he moved onward, knowing the figure would disappear soon enough.  But he stared for several minutes, and still the stranger didn't disappear.  Even as he walked closer, inching towards what he was still certain wasn't real, the figure stayed.  Just as the stag began to realize that perhaps he had finally wandered into another living being, a sharp pain shot through his leg, and all Gerato felt was his body fall to the ground as blackness took over his sight.  With a deep sigh, the once powerful beast lost consciousness.