For the next two days Genikòs did not return. Luna went to check on Genikòs every once in a while and watched from afar. The third day, Genikòs returned. He spotted Luna grazing in the stone circle where they'd met. Her buckskin coat glimmering in the starlight.
"Beautiful night isn't it?" Genikòs whispers loudly.
"You idiot! You knew something was up with the royal family and you didn't say anything!" she yells at him part angry but for the most part Luna was glad to see his smug face again. "Yeah, the queen had fallen ill no more than a week ago," he explained, "I was going to tell you. But the illness turned out to be much worse than they expected and she passed away 3 days ago." He pauses, thinking what to say next. Genikòs's white mane flowed gently in the wind and his perfectly groomed black and white coat shone in the moonlight, but his pitch black eyes were now frozen.
Luna trots up to him, she presses her muzzle in his white hair and whispers, "It's going to be okay. We'll be alright; they'll be alright." She looks at him with those beautiful blue-grey eyes.
Genikòs snorts softly. Then he starts toward an ancient tree. It's thin vines hung down from the tree's immature leaves down to the pasture. At the center, the tree's ancient trunk offered a great view of the countryside before the war had started.
Genikòs's mother had witnessed the beginning of the war and was retired to the stables because of it. She'd passed away about a year later.
The war had been going on for many years because some young scientists had discovered a mineral, Karièra, on the Isle of Man that could cure any illness, but of course the Livers claimed to own the mineral (I know, they picked a great name). This started many fights, which escalated so much that eventually the fighting became a full on war.
Genikòs thought about how life would be if the war had never started. If the Livers weren't so meddlesome. If his mom never died. If...
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If he'd known his dad.