THE MOMENT
Rachel was glad she was sitting down, because her knees felt weak. She was on a picnic blanket, under a large oak tree with her friend, Bolt, revealing his most private secret to her.
“Are you okay?” Bolt trotted over to the tree to check on her. He was a talking horse; that wasn't the secret part, but even he could see she looked more pale.
Rachel nodded silently as she collected her thoughts. She looked past the immense Clydesdale, through his legs, at the crushed metal cubes and scorch marks he'd created. He put on quite a show for Rachel and it was slightly too much for the young brunette woman.
She was a farmhand and one of Bolt's favorite people. She'd worked with him for several years and he finally felt he trusted someone enough to share his secrets with.
For his part, Bolt was patient. He knew he'd unloaded quite a bit and he let her take whatever time she needed.
Without a word, she stood and walked towards the destruction to inspect it. When Bolt led her out to the field in the middle of nowhere, she was surprised to see three large, rusted down tractors. Only one had wheels, and she had no idea how they got there, but that was quickly answered.
“I'm very strong,” Bolt undersold it as he reared up on his hind legs and crushed a tractor as he came down. He was able to casually condense the metal and glass into rough cube shapes with the same kind of ease as shaping mud.
“And, I can create electricity,” he added as an arc of lightning jumped from him to the nearest cube until it traveled through all of them and back to him.
Now, Rachel was walking by the waist-high cubes. She could feel faint static raising the hair on the back of her neck, and the air smelled like a storm. She was completely flabbergasted.
“This isn't what I expected at all...,” she finally spoke and wandered closer to Bolt. “Jeeze…,” she hadn't fully recovered, but she was on the right path and smiled at him. “When you told me you wanted to share your secrets with me, I thought you were going to explain how you can talk…” she giggled, still fighting her nerves. “I didn't expect you to have Superpowers.”
“What?” Bolt asked with a tilted head. “What do you mean? Me talking has never been a secret, the whole town knows.”
“Well yeah,” Rachel nodded. “But like, how, is the question. I thought that's what you were going to show.”
“How?” Bolt asked. “I just open my mouth and vocalize. It's not that hard, you're talking.”
“But you're a horse!” Rachel laughed. She was easily falling into familiar territory with him. He had superpowers, but he was still the same friend.
“I don't see what difference that makes. Humans talk all the time, no one's wondering HOW they do it.”
“Because humans talk by default, horses don't. You're not a normal horse.” Bolt laughed and shook his head.
“Even if I can speak, I'll never understand human communication,” he said. “The entire town is aware I’m intelligent, and they even refer to me as a 'talking horse', but they somehow still consider me a normal horse that must be using some vocalization trickery. Talking comes as easily to me as it does to ‘talking humans’.”
“Well, apparently, you have Superpowers,” Rachel added.
“That's a secret no one knows, it shouldn't matter….,” Bolt got halfway through the thought, then he looked at Rachel. “... Wait. Do you think they're related?”