Aqua Equus

Standing nearby, with one hand holding Sea Dragon's reins, and the other playing with her mane, I got a chance to finally get good look at the boy I had rescued from the waves. His dark skin rippled with muscles, there was sand dusting his back, and the frayed end of a surf board safety cord was around his ankle. No prizes for guessing where the surf board was now, which was why everyone on the island carried a diving knife with them.
He could easily have been mistaken for a god, with his looks and his muscle, except for the fact that he had just finished emptying the contents of his stomach.

"Okay now?" I asked. He nodded silently. "What's your name?" I asked, as I didn't recognise him at all.

"Arrow." He muttered, still bent over the sand.

I nodded. "Did no one tell you to not go swimming in September? The Aqua Equus are already restless."

"I'm from over there." He pointed at the mainland- the Salento Peninsula- in the distance. "It's safe for us."

"Not once you've drifted near the trench." I said. "Lucky for you my horse can swim."

He looked up, a worried expression on his face. "Is that an Aqua Equus?" He asked.

I shook my head, my hair wipping around my eyes. "Sea Dragon? No, she's only a second generation. Else I wouldn't have brought her down here."

"Have you ever ridden one?" He asked, interested.

"No, but I want to." I shrugged.

"Wouldn't that be dangerous?"

"Wouldn't that be part of the fun?" I replied.

He shrugged, getting to his feet. "I can't believe I owe my life to a scrawny white boy with a death wish." He grinned.

I opened my mouth to argue, but thought better of it. "See you around, then." I said, hopping back onto Sea Dragon and riding away.

The sun was sinking steadily as I rode back to the farm, making long shadows and bathing the island in orange light. I urged Sea Dragon into a gallop, and we jumped over fences and through gardens, until we hit the East-West road. I followed it, spurring her through the fields and woods. We chased our shadow, but never catching it. When, at last, we jumped the fence into her field, I walked her round a bit before slipping off, my bare feet landing on the grass. I removed her bridle and she happily wandered off towards the shelter in the corner of the field in search of hay.

I cleaned the mud and salt off the bridle before hanging it up in the tack room above the unused saddle.
Cesca and Dani were rushing around the kitchen when I walked in, and I found a stack of plates shoved into my arms.

"Be helpful for once." Cesca said. Her curly sun bleached hair hung around her shoulders in waves, and she smiled, before pushing me back outside.
I nodded, and set the table silently.

"We had the police round again." Dani called though the window, his arms in the washing up water. The blue shutters were flung open, allowing the last of the summer breeze to float through the house. "Anything you want to tell us now?"

I shook my head.

"Well, Miriam will be hearing about it then." He said. " And you might want to put those swords away before she gets in."

I nodded, unclipping the sheaths from my back and quickly running upstairs with them.
Miriam and her wife loved kids, so filled their farm with anyone who so much as asked, on the condition that you helped in some way. I was good with the more wild creatures, training them until anyone would be safe riding them. Sea Dragon was one of the ones I had worked with. Fortunately it meant that they turned a blind eye to everything else I did.
But they drew the line at the swords I had been given by my father. Two iron short swords, as black as the darkness, and as cold as death.
I wore them, not as a weapon, but so that he would know who I was, if he saw me.