I don't travel so far from home without reason, without purpose in the way my mismatched hooves beat against the earth. Today is no exception. I run with almost too much purpose behind my strides, nostrils flaring and muscles burning from exhilaration. There are too many things crowding my head, too many feelings clogging my heart and making my gears grind uneasily— I only wanted a moment away from them (just a second).

Mother was too much, a force both sensitive and mellow, an abundance of melancholic silence and blue. The down trodden mood blankets the entire forest, a black bubble of disaster and mourning, an influence on my own twisted sadness. I feel weightless some days, watching the hours tick by like its some kind of dream, lights dancing before me as I'm pulled forcefully from one day into the next. And I'll hear the wailing of a broken woman, a fallen emperor, ringing out through the creaking trees and quieting beneath grey skies. She walks around the forest like some kind of ghost, having lingered on this plane for too long in such a solid, confident state.

But this deep sorrow isn't the only side of her around these days— there's terrifying rage, a building up of pent up fury (towards herself, towards life), all threatening to spill out into the open one unfortunate day and bring me hell. I can feel it, sense the brewing storm in the way the hair on my spine rises, in the way my knees tremble when callous steel meets bubblegum. Soon enough she'll snap, and I'll be caught in the middle of her rage. In me she'll see her failures, her lost innocence to a man who has long since forgotten about her, the child she lost to a big wide world of all too much— and thundering down upon me will be all that pain and rage that's been building up inside of her. I live to fear each morning, afraid that today will be the day it all comes crashing down around me.

I couldn't take it anymore this morning, having fled from beneath tall pines to take refuge somewhere else. For a while I loitered at the edge of Aunt Nym's herd, trying to find the familiar grulla body among a sea of green and unfamiliarity. I found nothing but misfortune, turning myself away and running another distance before stumbling upon another figure (not the one I was looking for, but one none the less).

It was a child, peculiar in appearance, drawing me in with her intriguing display of traits. A delicate skull rises from a particularly small body, thin and lanky legs giving way to petite hooves (I'm too far to notice anything off). She is a princess, a child blurring the edges of equine and something else— built in a similar way to some of the passing fawns in the forest are, small and fragile as they bound helplessly behind their mothers. She wears russet fur over her feeble shoulders, and as I get closer I notice the gentle speckling of (fawn) spots— my eyes stop at the muzzle, squinting and blinking at the rather different facial structure the babe wears, accompanied by three toed feet (seriously, what is she?).

"What are you doing?" I ask the prancing deer-child, crowned head tilted down to look at the filly as the question falls from bi-coloured lips.

"Talk."

kid

run my reputation.