Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
-“Song of the Open Road”, Walt Whitman

Hol Horse had never really been in a hospital before as a patient; that’s why being a follower was a hell of a lot better than being a leader. Less risk to your own life. It’s always better to let someone else make the sacrifices you yourself won’t make. At least, that’s what Hol Horse has believed for most of his life. Unforeseen circumstances led him to that decision. He didn’t like to dwell on it much.

The bright fluorescents of the hospital lights were damn near blinding, especially to someone who was just regaining consciousness after being shot in the face. It was a painful sight for anyone, really, but especially gruesome to someone whose eyes hadn’t quite adjusted yet.

How long had he been out? Hol Horse thought to himself. A day? A week? Two weeks? A month? The passage of time was a cruel mistress, crueler than any woman he’d never met before, and he’d met a lot of women. Time passes without a care in the world and most certainly does not care about you. She never will, and neither will the strings of fate.

And the strings of fate had led Hol Horse to be here, in this hospital in Egypt, almost dead but somehow still alive. He didn’t know just how lucky he was.

“Oh, good! You’re finally awake.”

Turning his head and shielding his eyes, Hol Horse saw a nurse enter his room and closing the door behind her, holding a tray with food and a small cup containing pills. Still groggy, he let out a groan.

“Don’t push yourself,” she said. “You’ve been out for quite some time. The doctor said you would wake up soon so we took you off the feeder yesterday, but it’s recommended you eat soft foods first before jumping straight into solid ones.”

She set down the tray and walked over to Hol Horse, telling him she was going to prop the pillows up and helping him into a sitting position. He saw the food on his tray: some tomato soup, applesauce, presumably painkillers, some water to wash it down.

That’s when he noticed he could only see out of one eye, and touched his face, feeling bandages covering most of his appearance.

The nurse noticed this. “Oh, do you want a mirror?”

Hol Horse nodded in reply, and the nurse handed him the hand-held mirror on the side table next to his bed. Looking in the mirror, he saw bandages over most of his face, more specifically, over his nose, forehead, and left eye. Had he lost an eye? Was his nose okay? What would happen to his good looks.

Briefly he entered a state of despair. “What happened to me?” he asked weakly. “What happened to me?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t heal,” the nurse replied. “Except for your left eye. One of the bullets that hit you damaged it so bad we had to remove it, though we don’t know where the bullets went. All that will be left after the bandages are removed will be some scars, and you’ll have to wear an eyepatch.”

He started to tear up, his looks damaged. How would a woman ever find him attractive now?

The nurse started to leave the room, then added, “Oh! Since there was surgery on your nose and the surrounding areas, sneezing is going to hurt for a bit. Sorry.”

“Wait!”

She stopped in her tracks. “Yes?”

“What’s the date today?”

“February 1st.” Then she left.

February 1st, Hol Horse thought. It’s been a few weeks. I’ve been out for that long?

Slumping back into his pillows, he sighed, eyeing the food on his tray. How long had it been since he had tomato soup? He grew up with that. It was his favorite food growing up. That soup never failed to warm him up on the coldest of days and bring him joy and happiness. But those days were long behind him. Long before he took up mercenary life.

Before he developed his Stand, even. All of those memories were so hazy now, though that could be the anesthetic still wearing off. How had he gotten here? The many paths in his life that Hol Horse had taken led to this, they diverged here, to him in a hospital bed, injured but lucky to be alive. He could vaguely remember the EMT’s saying that.

Of all the paths he could have taken, he chose this one. What was that Robert Frost poem? What did it say? “I took the road less traveled by.”

Yeah, and it has made all the difference.

And if any place was as good as any to reflect on your life choices, it was a hospital.

Hol Horse always loved looking at the stars. On clear nights he would climb the fire escape of his family’s apartment building, lie on the roof, and stare at the night sky. Sometimes he would check out a library book on constellations and try and find as many as he could before his dad yelled up to him that it was bedtime.

Though his cowboy persona screamed “I grew up in the country” he was actually from New York City. That’s where he lived from birth to age 17 - he had a late birthday - and left after he graduated high school. There was nothing left for him there. He wanted to see the night sky free of light pollution and the loud sound of cars.

But his family didn’t have much money. They weren’t poor, like a lot of his friends in the neighborhood, but they weren’t rich by any means, either. A lot of times they lived paycheck to paycheck, simple meals the only thing they consumed, with Hol Horse being the cook; his father was too tired after work to cook. Soups were a big staple to them.

His dad wasn’t great for a long time. “Deadbeat” would be the best word to describe him. His mom left when he was still young. Hol Horse had to do everything himself, though at the time he wasn’t known as Hol Horse. He was born Howard Allman in late 1953. He was born the year the Korean War ended, though a few months after the peace treaty was signed. When his father was on leave, his mother flew out to Tokyo, and there, Hol Horse was conceived. Despite having served in World War II, his father also had to serve in Korea.

The draft, his father would later tell him, was a bitch.

Fortunately, Hol Horse didn’t get drafted into Vietnam. He wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway. It’s likely, in his mind, he would have joined those groups of draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, flee the country. When he was younger he didn’t like fighting. But as he got older, he realized he didn’t have a choice.

Contrary to what he’s like now, he wasn’t much of a lady-killer in his youth. In fact, he was quite, what the kids call, a “loser.” John Wayne saved the day, though, the Duke himself. Westerns were the one thing Hol Horse and his father could bond over and talk about, and actually have nice conversations about. When they weren’t talking about westerns, they lived in two separate universes. In one universe was a father who didn’t do much of anything and whose universe continued to shrink. In the other was a young boy who wanted his own to expand.

It was also with the help of the Duke that he donned his cowboy persona. After seeing in the movies that the women loved it, that swooned over the smooth-talking, one-liner cowboy who could get any woman he wanted, he went with it. It might have been the 1960s at this point, but counterculture was at its peak. Though he didn’t fit into “mod” or “hippie” he was still friends with people who were in both circles, of all races and genders. There was nothing hotter to women than a kind, masculine man.

At least, that’s how Hol Horse justified it in his head. But hey, it worked.

And he could remember the assassinations of the 1960s. John F. Kennedy, and then Lee Harvey Oswald shortly thereafter. Malcolm X. Martin Luther King Jr. Robert F. Kennedy. If anyone had asked him “Where were you when…?” he would have plenty of answers.

In high school, he was quite popular as a result of his cowboy persona, the smooth-talking that he learned, the flirting he learned. Though he doesn’t look it, he was quite smart, and learned that the ladies loved a man who knew poetry, so he memorized all he could. Hol Horse got a lot of dates, though not really any steady partner; he wanted to keep it that way. After graduation he was going to finally get out of New York City and explore the countryside. That was his greatest dream as a child and that dream stayed with him.

But he had nowhere to go. He was just a rambling man now, like every cowboy that came before him. All he had, Hol Horse thought to himself, was me, myself, and I. And so he hitchhiked his way out of the city, into the great beyond that he was going to acquaint himself with, his astronomy book always on him.

Thus began the dawning of a new life. And thus, after much thought to his new name, Hol Horse was born.

Chapter Text

When had he developed his Stand? Hol Horse couldn’t remember when Emperor came to be. How long ago was it now…? It was after he left the city, he knew that much, but he can’t quite pin down when exactly it first… showed up. He doubted Stand arrows existed back then, way back then, but what does he know? Damn near next to nothing except for being who he is.

If he could pinpoint it, it might have been when he was mugged in Wyoming.

It was his 21st birthday and he was celebrating it in a small-town country bar with small-town country ladies who were head-over-heels for one Mr. Hol Horse. He had been going around the States, sticking mainly to small towns and cities, real nice country ones, for he had idolized those the most, working odd-jobs to make some money and finance his travels. Back then it was cheap - well, cheaper - to do that than it was now, and Hol Horse was grateful for that.

He learned all he could by working on farms, taking care of farm animals, doing anything he could and learning whatever he could (and having some fun romances along the way). Turns out the “young, tall, tanned and sweaty muscular farmhand” was a great way to pick up chicks, too.

But here he was, buying drinks for the ladies, listening to rock, and playing pool. Living the high life, truly, as he knocked back some Coors. (Smoking his Marlboros wasn’t a habit he had yet, though it developed shortly thereafter.) They didn’t have Coors back east so he reveled in drinking as much as he could, knowing that if he still kept in contact with friends back home, they’d beg him to bring them some.

With a simple readjustment, fixing his position, a little more angle…

The group that had formed around the pool table heard the sound of the final billiard ball being sunk into the pocket, cueing some cheers and dollar bills being thrown on the table in Hol Horse’s direction. Once again he had won and judging by some of the looks the guys had, he figured he should take his leave from the table for a short amount of time. Making his way back to the bar, the one woman that stayed by his side the entire night continued to accompany him.

“Let me buy you this one,” she said, flagging the bartender down and sliding Hol Horse his beer when the bartender placed it on the counter. “Put it on my tab,” the woman added.

Hol Horse flashed her the trademark smirk he had oh-so-carefully crafted when he was still in high school. “Thank ya, doll.” The southern accent he had to develop on his own, and god, was it absolutely awful when he first tried it. Fortunately he got better. “Come here often, I reckon?”

“Often enough,” she replied with a wink.

“I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Linda.”

He nodded. “Pretty name. I like it.”

She smiled. “Thanks. My mother gave it to me.” This elicited a laugh from Hol Horse.

“Pretty and funny? You really are the whole package.”

From her pocket she took out a pack of Marlboros. “Cigarette?”

Hol Horse looked at the pack, then back at Linda, and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard they’re habit forming.”

“So is drinking and gambling.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that.

But before he could respond, a man tapped on his shoulder.

Now, being 6’2”, Hol Horse was taller than a lot of people, but when he turned around, this monster of a human being towered over him. It almost hurt his neck having to look up. How tall was this giant?

“Almost 7-foot, if you’re wondering,” the man said.

Hol Horse nodded. “Riiiiight…” Shaking his head to clear himself out of his shock and stupor, he asked, “So whaddaya want?”

He pointed at Linda. “That’s my girl.”

Ghosts would be envious of how white Hol Horse’s face became. Rapidly his head turned to look at Linda, then at the man, then back at Linda, and had he done it any more times he would have given himself whiplash. That’s when he noticed that Linda looked… smug?

Hold on a minute.

“Hold on a minute,” Hol Horse said, removing himself from being sandwiched between them. “What’s goin’ on?”

As Linda held up a wad of cash between her fingers, Hol Horse patted his jean pockets down, as well as, for some reason, his tight red t-shirt. He was starting to sweat, some pieces of hair that made up his barely-there mullet sticking to the back of his neck.

The man walked up to Hol Horse and said, “I’ll put this in terms you’ll understand. This is a stick-up.”

Well, Hol Horse never thought he’d actually hear that in real life, but there’s a first time for everything!

As well a first time for getting mugged and robbed.

His “first time” bingo chart was getting pretty filled up right about now.

“Okay, so what else d’you want? You’ve got my money.” Hol Horse held his hands up. “There isn’t much left to take.”

“Except that smirk off your face you had when you kept winnin’.” The giant gestured towards the pool table. “I know you cheated, asshole. We all did. No man is that good at pool.”

Hol Horse was about to reply before he noticed the group of bar patrons started to form a semi-circle around him. Well, add another stamp to that bingo chart. Could he fight? Sure.

In theory.

One of the men broke a pool stick over his knee and gave the other half to his friend. Switchblades were being brought out by a few others. The sweat on the back of his neck started to build exponentially.

If Hol Horse was good at one thing, it was dodging. For some reason had great reflexes when it came to dodging, and decided to rely upon that. It was the only thing he could rely on. With his back to the wall, he didn’t have an option and he didn’t have anywhere to run. There was a table to his left and to his right was a jukebox.

He had a stupid thought, an insanely stupid one. Of course he’d had them before, but this was astronomically stupid. If it worked, he could buy himself a few seconds to throw a punch or dodge or something. And if it didn’t… well, he didn’t want to think about that.

A man lunged. Hol Horse’s elbow came up-

And slammed against the jukebox.

It worked for The Fonz and it worked for him, an Elton John song starting up, oddly enough about fighting. The man lunging stumbled and Hol Horse dodged out of his way, then ducked to avoid a punch.

Turning around he came face-to-face with the man holding one half of the broken pool stick, who immediately swung. Hol Horse dropped down and the stick connected with the face of another guy who was prepared to get him from behind. As the pool stick-wielding madman jumped back to readjust, he crashed into a switchblade-wielding madman, effectively sticking himself with the blade.

The pool stick rolled over to Hol Horse who, seeing that three men whose beefiness rivaled Joe Greene’s, kicked the stick over in a last ditch effort and turned to run around to behind the pool table. Luck was on his side as one of the men stepped on it and tripped, the other two falling down on top of him.

Hol Horse picked up a billiard ball off the table and held it, not knowing if he was going to actually hit someone with it or what. Actually, he had no idea what he was doing with it, but he’d figure it out soon enough.

A man rushed up and stood opposite Hol Horse, the former with a grin to rival the devil and the latter with eyes bigger than dinner plates. It was a back-and-forth between them, juking to see who would move first and Hol Horse was starting to get an itchy trigger finger. Hol Horse went one way and the man decided to rush him, and so the pool ball went flying out of his hand towards the man’s face as Hol Horse used the edge of the pool table to throw himself underneath it.

The pool ball whizzed by the man and instead made its way to the bar, shattering a large pitcher of beer that sat atop it. Down onto the ground the golden ale flowed, and down onto the ground went many patrons who slipped on the beer and came crashing down, bringing others with them. The man who rushed Hol Horse didn’t account for his potential dodge under the pool table, and careened into the pool table itself, clipping his hip and causing him to stumble before falling backwards over a chair that wasn’t pushed in all the way and slammed into a table which went down with him.

Though he wondered for a brief moment where the other half of the broken pool stick went, it found him soon enough when it was jabbed under the table at him. Hol Horse rolled out and, spotting the discarded stick on the ground, picked it up and tried to wield it as best he could.

Fencing was something he had never participated in, nor did he have the thought to ever do that, but the way he and his opponent were lunging and stabbing at each other made it look awfully like they were having some sort of impromptu sword fight. He tried going on the defensive but the man backed him up further and further until he decided, much like with the pool ball, to just chuck the son of a bitch and pray he hit his mark.

Like a javelin flying through the air, the broken end of the stick somehow managed to hit the man dead in one of his eyes, causing him to fall to the floor with a shout. Hol Horse backed himself into a corner, this time on his own volition, and was once again faced with someone who rushed like they were playing against O. J. and trying to break his records. Quietly saying “Fuck it” Hol Horse ducked his head and also rushed the man who was subsequently lifted off his feet and slammed into the bar, back hitting it with a loud CRACK.

Hol Horse didn’t want to know if that was the bar breaking or the man’s back but whatever the case may be it would cause a lot to fix.

At that moment, the Elton John song faded out and the pained moans and groans of defeated bar patrons scattered across the ground could now be heard. Aside from that and Hol Horse’s labored breathing, it was quiet.

The monster of a man that had initially challenged Hol Horse and started this whole brawl slowly pushed himself up from the ground, and he was closer than Hol Horse liked.

“If you’ve got any proof I cheated,” Hol Horse said, “I’d like to see it.”

Though Hol Horse was initially confident, as soon as the man reached his full height, that confidence was much like a family getting rid of a dead goldfish: it was flushed away. The sound of cracking knuckles didn’t help. Raising his hands, Hol Horse said, “Listen, will you just-” He took a few steps back. “-Just gimme three steps, man.”

The man looked confused for a moment. “How’d you know what it’s called?” He narrowed his eyes. “No one ever wants it.”

Now it was Hol Horse’s turn to be confused. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

And then something appeared behind the man that… what was that? It was humanoid but it definitely wasn’t human, and it wasn’t something he’d ever seen before. Whatever it was, it was sand-colored and two hands reached out towards Hol Horse’s legs, taking them in a vice grip. He didn’t know what was happening, but he was being pulled forward towards the guy who was now…

Who was now holding a gun at Hol Horse’s face and prepared to shoot him point blank.

Oh Jesus Christ.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” he said.

One step.

Shit, what was he going to? He couldn’t get out of this, whatever “it” was that had a hold on him. He looked all around the bar and now saw smug faces from those slowly rising from the ground, either hiding that emotion or showing it plainly to the man who just blew in from out of town and took their money right out of their pockets and was drinking all their beer.

Two steps.

Well, 21 would be a good age to die. Would being the key word here. If he turned 21 before that goddamned voting age got lowered than he could have at least complained that he didn’t get to vote yet. This was some shit, plain and simple. What else could he say? If he was going to go out, he could at least make himself laugh as he did.

Right before he took that third step, Hol Horse held his hand up in a finger-gun position right at the end of the man’s gun barrel and said-

Third step.

“Draw.”

When thinking back on the incident, Hol Horse didn’t want to say that “everything seemed to go in slow motion” but… it really was like that. He couldn’t explain it at all.

To everyone else in the bar, it looked like the towering man’s gun had backfired somehow. Something went wrong and the bullet fired backwards and hit the man in the face instead, knocking him to the ground. Blood was everywhere. Dust and sand were kicked up everywhere.

People who had recovered enough from the fight rushed over to the man who was now bleeding out and would die in a matter of minutes if he wasn’t rushed to the nearest doctor. Unfortunately that night the local doctor wasn’t in the bar on his usual drinking binge because of the television show “M*A*S*H.” A new episode had aired the night before and the poor doctor had missed it because he was at the bar, and could catch the rerun tonight.

Before he could go out and get some ribs, though, a bloody body and equally bloodied people landed on his doorstep.

Now, what Hol Horse saw was wildly different.

Through his eyes, he suddenly saw a gun in his hand and a bullet that fired directly into the barrel of the opposing gun, causing it to blow up right in the man’s face. Hol Horse thought he hallucinated the whole thing and the man’s gun just, did something weird. He didn’t have time to dwell on it right now, though.

Under the cover of dust, smoke, and sand he ran out of the bar and just kept running as far and as fast as he could. But in the brief moments before he left, he heard two men talking.

“Talk about the king of luck. Man has all of it tonight.”

“King? I’d call him more of an emperor.”

Soon enough he arrived back at the motel he was staying at, thankful he had paid for the nights he was going to spend there in advance rather than at the end of his stay. He ran up the stairs, fishing his key out of his pocket.

Except nothing was in his pockets.

Linda back at the bar had it all.

Son of a…! Hol Horse thought, before doubling over, needing to actually take a breath. How far had he run? Thinking back to when the motel owner told him there was a bar “‘bout a mile-and-a-half down the road thataway” and pointed in the direction he had just come running from.

All that beer and all that running did not mix in the slightest, but he choked it back until he got inside his room.

Back down the stairs he went, legs feeling like jelly, and when he entered the small room the owner was at, Hol Horse leaned up against the counter and said in as steady of a voice he could muster, interspersed with poorly suppressed gasping breaths, “Hey, uh, lost my key, at the bar. Fell out ma pocket. Need a spare.”

The owner raised an eyebrow and looked the barely-keeping-it-together Hol Horse up and down. “You sure are sweaty. You run a marathon or somethin’?”

“You could say that.”

As soon as Hol Horse had the key in his hand and nodded his head, saying, “Thanks” he was out the door and back up the stairs to his room. The door was flung open and just as quickly shut and locked again, curtains drawn, lights out, toilet seat up.

How much time he passed with his head in the toilet bowl he didn’t know, only that he passed out on the bathroom floor at some point and woke up ridiculously dehydrated, sucking down water from the tap. To hell with cups; he wasn’t going to try and find one right now. Once more he passed out on the cool white tiles of the bathroom floor.

Hol Horse woke up with his mouth wide open and with a migraine to end all migraines and didn’t know whether he wanted to get up off the floor or not. He was sure that if he didn’t move now, he’d fuse to the tiles. The cheap fluorescent bathroom light bulb was blinding, more so than normal. He didn’t know what time it was and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But for right now, he had to get up.

He got one hand under him, then another. Slowly he pushed himself up off the ground, dry saliva peeling itself off his face as he did so. Resting on his elbows he turned himself to face the door of the bathroom and did a poor excuse of an army-crawl towards it.

Need to… turn that damn light off… was the only thought going through Hol Horse’s mind. Though he knew he couldn’t just reach up and hit the switch as his arms weren’t long enough, he tried anyway. Eventually he settled on pulling himself up using the counter. His legs weren’t any help, just dangling like limp noodles off his body so he had to rely on his upper body strength. As soon as his arms rested on the counter top -- and recovered from grabbing the sink handle first as support -- he reached over and flung his hand towards the light switch. The light now turned off, Hol Horse let his body slump back down onto the floor, the back of his head hitting the tile with a dull yet painful thud.

Well, his legs weren’t working right now, he could tell that much, and they probably wouldn’t for… well not for a little while, to say the least. Even though he knew this, he should probably shower. That always helped for a hangover, even if what he was experiencing wasn’t exactly that, but it might help.

Flipping himself back over onto his stomach, Hol Horse once more slowly army-crawled to the shower, flinging his top half over the side of the tub. Getting the water on was easy enough, but the hot water heater this motel had was absolute shit. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, waiting to feel the hot water on his fingertips, but he probably blacked out for a few minutes. When he came to, his fingers were getting burned by scalding hot water. He pulled the tap up and the shower came on, Hol Horse most of himself into the tub, right leg over the side of it. Right now he didn’t care about the fact that he was fully clothed or that his socks and shoes were still on. (Though, his Converse were looking pretty bad right now. He’s gonna have to get a new pair soon.)

He had to readjust himself because he knew he was gonna pass out again but wanted to make sure he didn’t drown when he did. Hol Horse was pretty sure he’d never felt this much like shit before in his life. The day after he turned 18 was pretty rough, considering he decided to celebrate it in fucking Vegas, of all places. Oh no, it won’t be bad, he had thought to himself. I’ll be totally fine. The next morning he woke up a mile outside of town wearing only a cowboy hat.

Sure, what he experienced was no Vegas by any means, but he’d be damned if he said Vegas was worse than this.

Hol Horse thought back to what those two men said about him being lucky. King of luck, huh? What was the other thing? Oh, right. Emperor.

The gunshot that came afterwards woke him right up.

Oh, fuck, he said to himself. They found me. I’m dead meat. I’m not even gonna get to see who’s gonna be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in a few months. Then he waited to see if there was any more noise to be made, any more gunshots or banging on the door. His eyes shut tight, he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And he waited.

But nothing came.

Slowly opening them back up one at a time, he saw a bullet hole, the bullet hole, in the wall across from him and in his hand, a gun. The gun that fired the shot. What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Hol Horse muttered. The gun had come out of nowhere; he didn’t even own a gun. How’d it get here? When he went to drop it just… disappeared. “What the fuck?” he repeated. This wasn’t making any sense. Maybe he had fallen asleep and was dreaming. Yeah, dreaming. He was just dreaming. And to prove it he was going to just pinch himself.

He did so, but the pain was real enough. Maybe it’s just a very vivid dream. Pulling his leg into the tub, he pushed himself forward and reached for the hole the bullet left in the wall. Feeling it, he could confirm it was real enough.

Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m in a coma. Something that’ll explain this. Because whatever is happening can’t be real.

This whole thing was absolutely bizarre, to say the least. What was the last thing he thought about before it… appeared? Materialized? Whatever. He was thinking about what that guy at the bar said about him. When it came to luck, he was the emperor.

And there it was. The gun appeared right back in his hand but this time he made sure not to have his finger on the trigger. Hol Horse turned it this way and that, holding it in both of his hands and inspecting it. (What he was looking for, he didn’t know; he wasn’t all that familiar with guns. But he could tell that this was no ordinary gun.)

Was it sentient? It seemed to only respond when he said “Emperor” or thought it. Was that its name? What even was this? Maybe the heat was getting to him. Hol Horse didn’t know. What he did know now was that the shower wasn’t needed to sober him up anymore; he was perfectly okay now.

Hol Horse sat in the tub as he removed his utterly-soaking wet clothing and shoes. Every time he came home with his socks and shoes soaked his father would lecture him on trench foot, “which is what your grandfather got in the Great War” he would say. He would roll his eyes every time and just say yes, okay, won’t happen again, and get on with his life.

Huh. He had forgotten about that until just now. Weird. His father had said it so often he was sure it’d always be ingrained in his memory, and in a way, it was. It was just laying dormant in the back of his mind. Wonder why that decided to come up now…

Soon enough Hol Horse was sitting on the edge of the cheap motel bed in a towel that had gone to an off-white color as it aged, facing a mirror. Though his hand was empty now, he was sure it wouldn’t be in a moment.

He took a deep breath. “Emperor.”

And there in his hand the gun appeared again, but he was prepared for it this time. He turned it over in his hand, closely examining it. This didn’t look like any gun he had ever seen before; to be fair, he’d never actually seen a gun in real life, only in the movies. Hol Horse knew jack shit about guns and figured now was probably the best time to learn.

Looking directly in the mirror he pointed the gun at himself, practicing his aim. He looked like he was in a movie doing this. That’d be a cool scene to see. In any case, he continued doing this, trying out various poses as a young man with a gun was wont to do.

Funny, he thought. It didn’t look like he could load bullets into it. So how could he fire? How did he fire it before? Hol Horse expected to hear the click of an unloaded gun when he pulled the trigger but he should really start to expect the unexpected by now. The bullet shot out and was set to shatter the mirror into millions of pieces when he wished it would avoid the mirror and go off elsewhere like, say, the ceiling.

Hol Horse threw himself off the bed and to the ground, covering his head and hoping the glass wouldn’t hurt him too badly. When the glass didn’t come he took a cursory glance behind him, and found that just as he willed it, the bullet had taken a sharp 90-degree turn and shot up into the ceiling.

It was at this time Hol Horse was glad he got a room on the second floor.