Salem

[salem]

S A L E M ____________________________________

AGE
Four

GENDER
Mare

PERSONALITY
Salem is a rather stand offish mare. She is quiet and shy at times, however very strong. She is very opinionated and intelectual, and has no problem expressing her beliefs. She can come off as arrogant, and she sometimes has a problem with speaking her mind. She is painfully smart, and sometimes has a problem with doubting others' intelligence. She thinks, sometimes too much, and is guilty of over thinking at some times. Salem is understanding and is patient. She's a great listener, and because of this she is easily taken advantage of. She likes to spend her time deep in thought. She's more of a "stand back and analyze," than a "go out and do" kind of mare. She has a temper, but rarely loses control of it.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Salem is Grulla Mustang. She is roughly fifteen hands, give or take a few inches. She has a thick build, very draft like in some ways. Her appearance is very clearly mustang, and very rustic. Light feathering of her feet, thick almost cresty neck. Salem has very dark brown eyes, and a partial blue.
HISTORY
Salem's life hasn't been all daisies and roses. Her ancestors, the mustangs, were wild horses. She never got the taste of true freedom, not until now anyways. Her instincts were forced to be kept under cover, hidden away. She was born in captivity, unlike her mother, and her mother's mother before her. She was never born into the wilderness, nor was she born of it. But she longed for it, she always had. She was born, however, into a large working cattle ranch. Its origin was unknown to her. The smells were different and strange, and the creatures here, the humans, weren’t the understanding loving ones you read about in books. Their hands weren’t soft and gentle, and their mouths spoke strange words she didn’t understand. She was never touched softly, or spoken to kindly. She gave, and they took, and she got nothing in exchange for her effort. Her mind was idle, and her heart, ultimately, unfulfilled.
She wasn’t understood. Her behavior, and the reasoning behind it, was completely overlooked. For some horses, domestication is taken with glee. For Salem, however, it was an iron clad fist that enveloped her soul. She longed for escape, and she longed for freedom. She always longed for something more. And at night, while the coyotes howled and the stars twinkled above her, she could feel deep inside herself that something wasn’t right here. This wasn’t where she was supposed to be. And that was when it happened. That night was a blur. The earth rumbled, and then shook with a fury that was strange to her. Water crashed around her, filling her ears and nostrils and stinging her eyes, and then darkness surrounded her. Sound seemed to disappear along with the world around her. Her instincts erupted from inside her like a blooming flower. Thousands of years of ancestry instinct flitted to her mind like a light in a dark room, flooding her thoughts. How quickly years of training, hours every day, were forgotten. Because, in the end, collection and your ability to separate that steer from the herd is completely irrelevant to your ability to fight the current of water that’s fighting to fill your lungs. In the end the only thing that matters is your survival. Salem was freed.