One step, two step, three and four

Sand moved beneath my dancing hooves, and to one unused to such a giving surface it would seem difficult, nigh impossible to dance as I was doing. It was a complicated one, one that within twenty heartbeats had me sweating in the cool night air. Why?

Because I was moving incredibly slow. Each step, each arch and each lean was slow, slower than the clouds moving across the sky. Slower than a snail moving across a leaf. At first glance I would seem frozen in place, in the queerest of positions. Yet as you stand, and watch, you would see me move, slowly but surely, centimeter by centimeter.

Since I was no little thing, and this dance designed for horses, always three of my feet were on the ground, supporting my weight as I moved so slowly. This was a dance as old as my land itself. A dance that stretched the muscles and tendons to their limits; it was a dance that left me giddy, breathless and exhilarated.

Wings slowly unfurled, bleached silver and black in the moonlight, arching through the air before twisting, flaring the undersides of my wings to the land behind me. Foreleg bent, slowly scraping the sand as my body arched like a bowstring pulled taut, until my knee placed itself upon the shifting ground. Then my other leg began to move to the side, my opposite hind leg moving as well, the hooves never leaving the ground.

The only part of my body that moved at any speed other than the snail-pace of my dance were my heaving sides and my hair, gently rustled by the near-constant wind that swirled through the desert beach.

Slowly I rise from the bow, then my hind legs move back, farther and farther until they tremble, my back slanted down like the slope of a hill. This was not a natural move to an Arabian, but rather the queer Morgans that occasionally had stumbled into Sehrau. Doing this kind of hurt, but the pleasant pain that burned at your tailbone.

One there, my neck bows ever so slowly, until my chin is to my chest. My body is trembling, protesting this rigor, this agonizingly slow dance. I choose to ignore it; I knew my limits, what parts of the dance I could and could not do.

I was almost done, the last and final pose of the dance was one of the hardest for it had to be kept the longest and had the most difficult transition. A wrong move could snap a tendon or tear muscle from bone. However, I was no inexperienced colt. My whole life I had been dancing this dance, stretching my body to limits it should never achieve, but somehow did.

The dance is partly what made me so...limber for the ladies. If you catch my drift.

A short laugh slips from my lips at that amusing thought as I begin the transition. My rear drops and tucks, pulling my body closer together as wings draw down, spreading out from my body and twisting so most of the bottoms of my feathers brush the sand. Legs still hunched under my body, my back bows as I arch my neck, muzzle pointed vertical to the ground. I stretch my neck out to it's full extent, and arch it as much as I can.

I shift my hind hooves, planting them firmly so I can support my weight on them as I oh, so slowly, raise a foreleg until my leg touches my chest. By this time, this far into the dance, I am ready to fall down and just lay there. But to do so would admit a weakness so wrong that I scorned even the very THOUGHT of giving up. This was my heritage, my piece of home, this dance was me.

For there is a deeper meaning to this rigorous exercise, as there is to everything I do. This dance is not just a dance, a stretch. No. It was me, who I was at my very core. If any watched the entirety, they would read the message every pose screamed.

I was a fallen prince, a dancer, an artist, a killer and a lover. But above all I was wild.

And wildness was in this pose, this hardest of poses.

Finally complete in my movements, I go still.

My leg is drawn up to my chest, my neck arched and my tail raised in all it's glory. Wings are outstretched, feathers flared and gleaming in the moonlight. It is the pose of a warhorse in a painting, a pose of one who laughs in the face of danger and charges without abandon into the midst of the fray. It was the pose of one who stood before those closest to him, who embraced loved ones with passion and laughter. The pose of a man who would kill with glee, who reveled in blood and pain.

It was him. It was Altan, it was Bucephalus. It was all he was yet none of him.

Legs tremble, the only sign of weakness before they crumple beneath me and I crash to the ground. For a moment I lay there, my entire body coated with sweat, foam lacing my shoulders and rump. First few times I try to rise, I am like a colt at birth; my legs refuse to obey me, and when I finally get to my feet they wobble like mad, threatening to toss me back onto the sand for such abuse.

I throw my sore neck back and laughed. The rush is too good, the ache and pain so welcoming, a balm to my soul. The aches of old wounds, physical and mental, are washed away by the fire of the dance, and for quite some time they would remain gone. When it all got too much, when my body and mind felt close to the breaking point... this was my release, the way for me to escape the shackles of scar and of him.

It made me feel invincible and oh so mortal at the same time.

1023 WORDS OF VERY SLOW STRETCHING ENJOY

"Altan's speech."
"Buce's speech."

@[Ampere] @[Zèklè]