Look down, the ground below is crumbling
Look up, the stars are all exploding
The rim of the threshold forest was like a warren ribbed with old scrawny redwood trees; pungent with their quite unbearably dense, summer tang; bedded intricately with a carpet of their long dead, interwoven needles, and unprotected mostly from the harshness of the season’s scorching sun, because their spindly, underdressed tips did not mesh together into vast canopies like the deep forests just to the south.
It was for many of these reasons Africa and her flighted bonded hastened between the rough trunks, questing with an ever expanding need to find respite where the woods became much denser. Both knew confidently (from repeat experience), that younger trees like slender striped birches, and their much grander neighbours- White Oak with timelessly gnarled, weather-beaten limbs and grew towards the eastern-centre; where ferns and lichen were shrouded in amble dank shade to thrive.

Onwards they delved, deeper through the shifting face of the eerie, old landscape; Africa fleet of foot, and always watchful as she passed through, and Silas the glossy black airborne Zephyr, whose sole commitment in his brief time on earth was the safety and wellbeing of his love. They slowed their determined journey only when as they slipped beneath the first boughs of the great emerald-green canopy above; the instant gratification of dense, cooling shade provoking a relieved, victorious smile across her dry, dust-tinged lips. "Soooo much better!" She sang brightly as her friend alit in a tree not far ahead of her. The young creature turned his purple masked face then, after passing an attentive eye across the grounded mare, and began to realign the windswept feathers across his breast.

Africa watched for only a few seconds before shifting her attention to the lush cover cluster of succulent lilies, and the outstanding white cup of flower in their midst. How lovely... She thought admiringly, stepping towards it, quivering muzzle reaching eagerly. She was distracted however, and Silas quite suddenly rocked from his settled perch, by the unexpected crashing of perhaps a large tree, somewhere off to their right. No path had guided them here, and all around grew thick tangles of vine and shabby undergrowth, quite impenetrable to the naked eye.
Curiously, the dappled horse glanced by Silas, the stirring of interest in her heart compelling him down in an instant to land atop her pointed, mottled withers. Carefully, Africa sought her own variation of passage through the thick mess strewn all over the forest floor, trying as best she could, to duck and weave well clear of the sticky, rotten webs which fortified any clearing.

The humidity was putrid, even in throughout the sheltered depths through which they ventured. Sleek, saturating sweat cloaked Africa’s body and a cloud of persistent flies were their ever-present company as they sought the source of the crash. Accidentally, she miscalculated the step across a small decaying log which had fallen perhaps many seasons ago. ((crack...)) The sound carried perfectly through the silence of the forest, and the mare winced apologetically as Silas’s blunted talons tightened around her sensitive skin. "Hello?" She called out then, having quite obviously shattered their cover. Should the sound have in fact been the natural process of felling trees, surely then it would only be a short distance away by now. They waited for a few minutes for any reply; the sign or signal of living company, but no voice was returned- slowly, Africa ease forward again, after a quick realignment of her turncoat hoof.