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02-27-2014, 03:12 AM
V I E N N A It could have been something in the air. Maybe it was that, even in the coldest season, the wind stung too bitterly. Maybe the crunch of grass and frozen ground seemed too flinty against her hooves. Maybe it was just that she hadn't had a proper bath in a few weeks. Whatever it was, there was something odd there. Something that didn't quite belong. It was not the first time she'd found herself beset by this feeling of wrongness, for certainly wrongness was as much a part of life as rightness. In her youth, she might've ignored such prickling premonitions, but experience had made her aware of her instincts, if not appropriately cautious of them. She paused, holding her imagined line in the sand as her weight shifted to and fro on her sturdy legs. Truthfully, there was no choice. Forward, there may be danger, but behind her lay only her own prints in cold mud and an expanse of miles. The terrain had been treacherous and food had been scarce. And, greatest among tragedies, that peculiar sweetgrass she was so fond of was nowhere to be had. Worst of all, there was a hulking beast with sharp teeth and quick claws barreling down upon her. In fact, this same beast was after every soul that had ever set off from home alone, or who ever walked barren miles without another voice, or curled in at night without the heat of another body to share. It could freeze hearts and devour minds and its hunger was insatiable. The beast was named isolation and silence and madness, and a million other names that crawled out of the dark corners of a lonely mind. She had run her course alone. No longer would good humor and songs sung into the wastelands repel the beast. Of all the things that could have spurred her to finally cross that arbitrary border, it was an itch. A very particular itch very particularly gnawing at her left flank. So, rather than being greeted by fanfare, she was greeted by a lovely, knotty patch of bark. Any small measure of comfort was gladly welcome these days. She rolled her hip against the rough patch slowly, and the dry tree groaned in protest at her weight. Uncomfortable, but not outright impolite, she took a step back. "Oh! My mistake, leafy friend." She blinked up at the bare branches, gray and gnarled and ominous. "Oooor... not so leafy friend." The tree, a particularly talkative, particularly old one who had no patience for little mares, rustled threateningly. But the little mare likewise had no patience for ominous trees in foreign lands, and certainly not for rude ones. "Excuse you, I am not lost." The tree disagreed silently. "Seems to me it's everyone else who is lost. Otherwise this place would not smell so much of hoofbeasts and have so few." The tree creaked, probably sarcastically. She couldn't be sure. Despite efforts to the contrary, she was not fluent in tree. A sound from somewhere deep in the wood startled her from educating the glorified kindling on proper arboreal etiquette. Maybe it was nothing but a falling branch, or a foraging animal. But she briefly, fleetingly allowed herself the thought that it could be someone else... a friend. Or at least better conversation than she'd yet enjoyed. The very idea sent a thrill up her spine. She turned a circle, desperately seeking the source, to little avail. So she picked a direction and took two steps into it before it occurred to her to say goodbye to the tree. "By the way, without your leaves, your trunk looks huge." Unbowed as ever, she set out in search of companionship... and perhaps a much needed bath. Walking. "Talking." open ][ tags  |
