I am who the wolf-folk call Tsetseg.
I am a bay. We bays are the most common mares in the herd. I have no identifying marks to differentiate myself. I am merely, simply, a bay. The combination of the dominant (E) gene and the agouti (A) gene.
I was born in the year of the black hen. By definition, the year makes me frank and self-confident. The element of water means I am observant, and courageous.
When I wish to, it is easy for me to disappear.
Just as easily, I can reappear.
We horses have proud calls. My name is ᠨᠢᠰᠦᠭᠰᠡᠨ ᠪᠦᠷᠭᠦᠳ. Nisügsen Bürgüd.
The given names are much too complicated for our wolf-kin counterparts. So we must make do with their inferior vocabulary.

I am who the wolf-folk call Flower.


Wild winds riff through unmanaged mane, and down the skyroad to the little lake where hooves pound. A return, like a rest for migrating birds, in accordance with their old world home.
Her young colt stays near. Tsetseg beckons him close always, no trust given to the herding nature of the wolf-folk.
But they are here and underneath the vibrant spread of stars. They are home.

Stallions are the necessary evil among the herd. A nuisance they are, showing off their grand muscling, fighting always amongst themselves. I keep count of how many times Colt and I have been made to shuffle from one band to the next. As many as three in one day.
Yet, every year biology deems I seek them, a physical matter over mind. I have had much time to consider this contradiction. It interests me that life’s greatest ambition is to reproduce itself.
But I cannot understand more complex sciences. We horses have no body of knowledge but the biology of our own herd.
ᠱᠠᠭᠤᠷᠭ᠎ᠠ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ is not a cruel stallion, and still always he must assert himself with irritating insistence.


There will soon come a day when her colt is too old to remain at his mother’s side. He would be chased off by ᠱᠠᠭᠤᠷᠭ᠎ᠠ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ. But for now, regardless of paternity, Colt’s father is the black roan.
Tsetseg takes long laps of lakewater, side-eyeing as Colt frolics a sprightly circle around the proud stallion.