Istu

It was late. The snow had not fallen for weeks later than it was expected. Everything else was the same; it was still cold, and when it rained the drops were like sharp bits of ice that soaked into one's bones. The world was still quiet and deserted, but there was no endless stretch of white that brought release from the boiling summer, no cold and howling winds and no smells of despair and cold air.

A black mare, agile and sleek, walked lazily through this strange, snowless world with blue eyes half closed and a snowy tail swishing lazily. She seemed to move like someone enjoying warm afternoon sun, minus the warmth and the sun. But she ambled along on long, almost awkward legs. She stood at an average height, but she was built in a weird, tiny way. Her body was designed to keep cool in harsh heat, but did little to keep her warm in the long winter nights. She snorted softly, and shuddered through a sweat-soaked coat for the hundredth time as she continued to look at the world with disinterest. Her lean legs would carry her no more, and her black body lowered to the ground painfully slow, and she came to rest against a big old tree. It was much older than her, and it had seen many more like her. Many more who would like to continue on, but their bodies had failed them, leaving them to perish in the unforgiving hands of mother nature.

The mare had been alone for a season now, and she missed the security of herd structure. She missed the old, strange mares that had raised her, and she missed the wild, gypsy ways of the bandits she had come to love. She wondered weather she's cross paths with any of them again. She especially missed Etu, the sunny stallion who she ran with in those four wonderful years. A whole season had passed, and still the thought of his golden face made her heart ache. And as she missed the beautiful way he spoke, she got up. "I'm meaner than my demons, I'm bigger than these bones". And he was.

She looked at the world around her with those gleaming blue eyes and she fell in love with the things around her. She fell in love over and over as her eyes settled on something new, and her red face was filled with wonder and pain and love. And she carried on. 

This time she took off at a slow trot, muscles stretching and warming as she breathed in new life. This life she had wasn't so bad, it could be much worse. But her pain was her own, and she felt it deeply and grasped at it desperately just so she could keep feeling something. But she'd felt life stirring in her heart many times before, and now she felt the familiar tugging at her heart as she longed to learn more, learn again, and love again. She was meaner than her demons, and she was bigger than her bones. She was bigger than the bones that were no longer failing her, and she bucked and slid to a stop as she felt her heart pumping and saw the steam puff from her nostrils. For today she could forget, and for today she would love again, and she felt the faint warmth of the winter sun on her back as she stood silently in a clearing, her horn flashing in the cold.

  "Speech"
OCC; Sorry, this post is so crappy :/

Into the rose garden