Name: Akecheta

(pronunciation "ah-keh-che-ta", meaning fighter, warrior in Sioux language)

Nickname: Ake (ah-keh)

Age: Depends on use, generally between 4 & 7 years

Breed: American Mustang

Color: Bay Roan

Markings: Right Front Sock, Left Hind Stocking, Irregular Star & Snip

Gender: Stallion

Height: 15.2hh at maturity

Herd: Roan Mountain Herd

Mares: N/A [Open by Request]

Personality: Akecheta is much like his father Phoenix, in that he is energetic and high spirited, but he tends to be more balanced out with his mother's good temper and friendly, easygoing nature. He has humility and whether it is because he has been away from his herd for so long that he can't quite remember who he is, or if it's just his true nature, he will typically submit to other horses very easily. He can be quite nervous around others since he hasn't seen all that many of his own kind since the loss of his herd, and those he has seen are generally tamed animals he cannot bring himself to fully trust.

History:

Akecheta was born nameless, to a blue roan mustang mare named Sierra and a fiery strawberry roan stallion named Phoenix. Sierra had been born wild and had always intended to stay that way. In his earlier life, Phoenix had been a chief's war mount, returning to the wild with Sierra after the death of his owner. The two were the leaders of a band of hardy, mountain-bred Mustangs and cherished their first son greatly. Phoenix was so impressed by the little colt that he decided his new son would one day become the herd stallion when he himself grew too old to defend it. As neither Sierra or Phoenix had been given their names until they were 2 years of age, they chose to carry the tradition into their herd, choosing not to name their colt until it would be time for him to leave the herd.

When the roan colt was a yearling coming into a harsh winter, wranglers entered Roan Mountain where the herd resided and captured them, corralling them at the base of the mountains when the horses came down for water. The young colt was so spooked by this event that he bolted off in panic with three or four wranglers in hot pursuit. The chase took them up a narrow mountain path where he thought he would escape to safety, until he slipped on a patch of ice on the trail and skidded over the edge of a steep dropoff and into a huge snow drift 20 feet below. He was miraculously unharmed in this event, but in falling, he'd struck a tree branch with a hoof, knocking a fresh cover of powder from its limbs and burying himself in the snow.

The wranglers assumed the colt was dead as they believed no horse could have survived such a fall, but when they left he finally popped out of the snow, shook himself off, and made his way back to where his herd had been cornered. He carefully chose to keep his distance, remaining out of sight and downwind while the wranglers corralled his family in the basin where they had gone for water. He saw that his parents, the leaders of the herd, had been subdued.

The roan colt didn't know what he could do for his herd. If he tried to free them he could be captured. But he couldn't just abandon them. He decided to track them, following from well behind. He'd been following their scents for days when he finally came to a wide river that ran through a canyon, and that was where he lost them. There were hoof prints leading right up to the water's edge, but nothing on the other side no matter how far up or downstream he traveled. He continued to pace the river in the hope that something would turn up, running himself nearly to exhaustion before collapsing in the shallows on a hot day. Soon after, a Lakota horseman found him laying in the river when he brought his village's herd down for water. He found that the colt was still alive, and managed to get him up and walking again. The little roan was in such a dazed state that he scarcely realized he was being taken in by a human.

He was thankful for the care he received in being nursed back to health, but he was still wild, and he would not allow any human to get near him, fighting everything they did to try and tame him. The horsemen in the tribe referred to him as a Little Fighter, which later earned him the name of Akecheta.

When the horsemen finally felt they were making some progress with the roan colt, the village was raided by another tribe. The rival tribe stole the horses, including Akecheta, and sold them to a stable owner in a nearby settlement. The stable owner sent Ake to a specialized horse-breaker, who boasted his ability to break any old outlaw. It was here that Ake would experience the worst of men.

The breaker used many rough and abusive techniques to break Ake, such as tying him to a tree or a post without water (much like the Colonel did to weaken Spirit), looping a rope around his leg and barrel to force him to lay down, and whipping him on the nose when he bucked. He was kept confined in a stall with food and water when he cooperated with training, but was taken back to the post whenever he disobeyed or fought to be wild again.

Eventually his time with the rough-riders was over and done with and he was taken back to the livery stable, where he was rented out for work as a riding horse, packhorse, or as part of a stagecoach or pulling team. Time with the livery was short-lived, as one day, only a few months after he had first been brought there, a hapless customer had forgotten to tie the horses securely before bedding down for the night. Ake had realized that he was untied, and wandered off putting some distance between him and the settlements. He managed to slip his halter off by rubbing his head on a tree branch.

Now wild again at last, Akecheta met a young black pinto filly named Ginger, who showed him to a sanctuary in the desert, with plenty of food and fresh water for them. They slowly fell in love, and Akecheta made Ginger his mate. Ginger wanted to start a herd with him, and Ake would have loved nothing more than to bring Ginger back to his homeland, but they were many, many miles away from anywhere he knew as familiar territory, and he still had no clue what had become of his family.

Relation to Spirit: Trespassing onto Cimarron territory for the first time, Spirit went to confront what he thought may have been an imminent threat, but turned out to be Akecheta as a scrawny two-year-old colt. Taking pity on the poor boy, Spirit allowed the roan colt to stay with his herd in their sanctuary until he had regained his full strength, at which point Spirit warned him he would have to move on if he had no desire to fight the buckskin stallion for control of his herd. He has stayed with the Cimarron on two other ocassions, once taking up a kind of position akin to a messenger, where he warned Spirit that wranglers had been seen in the area, after which Spirit thanked him and rewarded him by allowing him to stay in Homeland, which he does for about a month at a time. Spirit has even given Akecheta a lead on what may have happened to his family. He seemed to recall seeing a group of roan horses in the pulling team at Iron Horse Camp.

Song Playlist:

Eastward Bound

Train Heist Theme (Catching Train)

The Disaster

My Last Son Battle Theme

Unshaken (D'Angelo - Red Dead Redemption 2 Soundtrack)

Fleeting Joy

Far Away (Jose Gonzalez - Red Dead Redemption Soundtrack)

Where Do I Go From Here? (Bryan Adams - Spirit:Stallion of the Cimarron Bonus Track)

The Outlaw's Return

Compass (Jamie Lidell - Red Dead Redemption Soundtrack)

Akecheta Design & Bio (c) me, MustangSally94/Somatic

Headshot (c) me

Body (c) DreamWorks Coloring Pages