[SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY D: life unexpectedly ate me after I posted this.]

I suppose I won't ever know what that little dark dragon from my mane was supposed to mean, because no followers of the Dragonheart arrive to stir it further, and so the line of memory flits away like a butterfly on a breeze. The great thing about memories though, you're always making them. The present is ever spinning itself into the past, moments drifting by like water in your mind, fluid and endless.

One comes now, riding on the hooves of a speckled girl. I hear her just before she calls out, her hooves making a smack smack against the ice as she walks loosely from her exercise. At once I scatter into a plethora of ink, spraying like a dark wave on the shore of the tree. I gather myself back up, painting my existence back into a wolf. I'm trying to be scary before I run off, but the snow had slowly bled me out and I'm sloppy with hunger. Soon enough my magic falls off me like a winter coat under summer, and I revert back to my solid, horse state.

I shudder as I look at her, my head high, but not with authority.
Then she does something peculiar.

She doesn't attack, which in itself is not strange. She doesn't tallk, but more than that, she draws.
I stare at her, dumbfounded, my mouth ajar - I know because I can feel the cold drying out my tongue.

I close my gaping maw, almost clipping my lip as my focus remains trained on the figures she carves into the snow. I walk closer, not even thinking, to better see them. They are different than my pieces or art, but it's art nonetheless and my chest buoys with a certain joy I've never experienced. I haven't met other artists before.

I think I love her.

Her voice draws my head towards her, black eyes searching her face as she speaks. I've completely relaxed now, which seems foolish given how jumpy I was prior, but my paranoia like many things about me, isn't easily explained. Although a certain sorrow edges into me when I hear her talk, realizing she is not exactly like me, I'm still elated.
I bob my head at her own excitement, drawn towards her cheerfulness, smiling as she explains her berry method. I use them for colors, when I want, but generally grayscale suits me.

Another presence draws near, unheard as I absorbed myself in the painted writer. The voice and the speech do little to soothe my flesh as it ripples with surprise. I shy to the side, my black tail flushing out behind me with a stroke of ink as I move. The black substance settles like a flat snake, seeping into the snow where it falls.

In comparison to Rei this mare does not seem kind and I am instantly more wary of her. That brings on a sharper side of myself, falling easily into the old routine of survival, where as Rei allowed me to melt into beauty.

I'm sure it's awkward by now, my lack of speech. It's been long enough that a normal horse would have said something. Enough statements and questions have been uttered that a normal horse would have responded with words. I'm not normal though, not by their standards. Still, I try to fit in when I can, to make it easier, so I at least follow the cadence of greetings and speak to them in what way I can.

I draw.

I step forward, my tail swerving behind me with a black stream. It turns it, builds it, pushes it out into the world and creates - what has Ghost's tail ever done?
From my brush my art, my mind, my heart flows out. I bring to them a tree, robust in leaves and above it, an orb, or rather it's outline, to be the sun. A lone figure draws from another well of ink, joining the scene. It's a horse. Me, or how I interpret myself, a shadowy, dark husk of a horse in its most basic shape. The sun sets however, and the tree's leaves fall until its skeleton is left. All the while my tail, my body is moving, each stroke expertly placed.

From the side of the skeleton the horse grows to be thin as well.
Bark is all that there is to offer in winter. I let my gaze rest heavily on the red winged mare, my drawing falling lifeless around me in a dismal spray. Without averting my eyes I reach around and once again chew on a tree trunk.

Maybe I'm starving and she's fat on herd life, but I'll be damned if that makes her better than me.