The star girl’s expression was etched softly into the curves of her face. She felt lost within the land-bound frame that her spirit fluttered within, so she tried to easily mimic ever so subtly his body language. The conversation was nice, and even if it would surly be fleeting as the rest, she would enjoy it as it lasted. “Erebos,” she repeated, a gentle smile landing upon her lips to match the one that tugged at his. The name nearly sounded like one she had heard before. Perhaps it was a common name around here? And now is the point you introduce yourself, the voice within her nagged, but she ignored it.
’From the Aurora Basin.’ The faintest flutter stirred within her breast. Barely as long as a heartbeat, and much less noticeable. Nearly an ache. Nearly a flicker. Nearly a memory.
’You used to be, too.’
Suddenly, the world came to a screeching halt. The world shook, it heaved, it screamed within her ears. It shattered her facade, broke her heart, increased gravity and pulled at her, pushed at her, pounded on her. Her stomach twisted, and her heart plummeted like a stone. For a moment, nothing came from her. Not a yell, a murmur, or even a breath. Everything stopped. Her veins ran cold. Her mouth opened slightly, as if a word was meant to slip free, before slowly closing again.
Deep in the numerous nights as she had rested, lost and existing in the moment, a puzzle piece left far below a starlit sky, she had often dreamed of a place, a great sweeping valley that appeared within her minds eye more often than not. A heavenly place, always white and gleaming as if covered in birdsong frost, the sloping landscape broken up by towering pines and great heaving boulders. And this place was never empty. Many spirits haunted this place, drifting in and out of her dreams. A great hulking monstrous stallion, a beautiful antlered healer, a painted desire, a bizarre tiny stallion made of sweets, a ram-headed man with the devil in his eyes. Beyond that, there had been so many more. For so long, they had been nothing but bodies with faces she could never quite make out. A world sprawled out before her that, even while in her deepest of sleeps, she never needed a map to navigate. Her hooves had always known were to wander. She had known almost every inch of the far off place. Could it be? Could it have been?
The world around her finally stopped spinning after seconds, minutes, hours, of that she wasn’t sure. Finally she was able to collect herself, let the shambling pieces fall back into place. In place of the upheaval that had just uprooted her, the gentle ache at the cracked base of her horn was all that remained, and even then she didn’t notice.
A single tear began to fall as the unyielding storms captured within her eyes were finally allowed to rain.
“One morning, I woke up,” she began, the gentle melody of her voice unsteady, unsure. “But, I woke up without a single clue as to who I was, or how I came to be upon the riverbank where everything started over. I mean, of course there must have been something before that moment, I hadn’t simply fallen from the sky,” ’though, I had considered it,’ she finished in her head. “So I picked myself, rinsed off the blood and dust, and began wandering. I suppose I washed away whatever was left of me on that day, as well.” She dropped her head and averted her eyes. She didn’t mean to spill the contents of her heart at the stranger’s hooves, but once she cracked open, she couldn’t hold it back. “I never received any answers to the questions, though I wasn’t particularly looking, either. How does one even go about that? How do you know where to look, when you aren’t even sure what you lost? Those who I have met since that day have not recognized me as a familiar face, so I simply thought I was somewhere new. A perfect place to start a new life. At least, until now.”
Her words tapered off, but it was too late. They had carved deep gashes into her heart as they slipped free from the caverns they had lain dormant in for so long. They stole the breath from her lungs, made her throat ache as they scratched and clawed their way to the surface.
“I know you’re a stranger-“ she paused, going on to correct herself, “well, perhaps you aren’t, but I don’t even know if these things are important. I don’t even know if we were friends.” Still she fought against the sting of tears that tickled her lashes. “I didn’t know where I was from. I’ve spent so much time just floating around from place to place, I began to think that maybe I had done that previously, which is why nowhere ever felt like home. I never thought that there might be a place where I was missing from.”
“Erebos,” she said again, this time knowing its familiarity was true, “I have known myself by many names since beginning this journey. I have worn the title of whatever feels best, introduced myself as the first name that fell upon my mind during any given meeting.” She swallowed hard, trying to fight back the next question, wondering how broken and defeated she must look, and how much worse it would appear once she let the question slip from her lips. Quietly then, meek, mild, soft, everything the mare had never been before that fateful day, she let the question slip free, wishing the golden rays of they dying sun weren’t there to illuminate her desperate eyes.
“What is my name?”
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: kiirha1_by_littlewillow_art-d9sng8h_zpszhllmi1m.png]](http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/trauma-queen/media/Mobile%20Uploads/kiirha1_by_littlewillow_art-d9sng8h_zpszhllmi1m.png.html)
![[Image: 5581b91112f69]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/5581b91112f69)
