Worry danced in and out of the painted warrior as she looked over her home. Everything that had been nice and quite peaceful for once was falling to shambles around her, unlike any other war that had ransacked the world around her this one didn't seem like it was going to be able to be won. At least not without more causalities than they could handle at the time being. Pink pools shifted about uncomfortably as she thought of how many of her kind had chosen to leave their homes in seek of safer grounds, somewhere that the deities would keep them safe from the demons that plagued the Earth they lived on.
Maybe she was foolish for not following them as a mare in her right mind would, and of course the thought of tracking them down now had always crossed her mind. It still did to this very day, but the thought of running away now seemed like a surefire way of saying she gave up. And giving up just wasn't something she would ever do, fighting to her death had been bred into her through many generations of good strong warrior horses...and she wasn't about to dishonor her ancestors or Kawhu by running away when things got tough.
Flicking a ruddy hark the well muscled mare allowed a sigh loose from her rosy velvets, it seemed that things would never go over very smoothly in these parts. But the least she could do was try and help regain some of the very weak normality that laced the lands of Helovia together, she hadn't been able to save her rider there was no way she was going to fail those who had trusted her enough to make her a member of their herd. Long, pale hued tail flicked over her splashed and scarred barrel as she brought her thoughts back to the reality that was around her, everything carried a stench of death and rotting...a smell that no matter how often it lingered on the delicate skin of her nares she was sure to never grow used to it. Curling the soft pink skin the painted mare turned away from the hill top she had been standing on, she had been standing here for too long and Cheveyo knew it wouldn't be long before she was spotted and hunted like a deer.
Shaking her skull as she walked back to the little hide away she had found, a safe distance from the last place she had seen one of the infected creatures, she began to wonder if it would have been wiser for her to follow what was left of her herd to safety? It would be easier to protect them when she could see them and the danger they would undoubtedly put themselves in. Stretching her stride out a little the mare picked up the pace from her easy floaty trot into an easily ground-eating canter that brought her upon her peaceful hide-away in little to no time.
A creeping feeling of something being off was beginning to grow on the painted mare as she grew closer and closer to her resting spot. Slowing down ever so slightly the mare felt the flame hued hairs on her back begin to stand on end as the stench of death grew stronger than it normally was around these parts. Changing up her normal path ever so slightly the painted warrior made it so she would go up behind one of the trees that grew near her spot, petal pools glanced about the rough bark that was rubbing against the soft skin of her nose only to see a mangled and rotting form sniffing at the place she normally laid.
Chestnut harks slammed back against her skull as different scenarios played through her grey matter, she could charge and fight the creature. But from what she had witnessed that normally led to the healthy one turning into one of them, not to mention it probably wasn't alone. So that left one and only one option, leaving. Biting the insides of her cheeks the mare turned and headed out of the Foothills, leaving what had been her home behind her in search of the family she had grown to care for.
***
Sides heaved as the painted mare slid into the hole in the ground that was saturated in the scents of the many different equines who were hiding out in the Heart of Helovia. Apparently this was one of the only places not infected and unreachable by the demonic creatures who had once been loved ones in everyone's lives. Pulling herself together slowly the mare took a few steps before placing her sweat soaked skull against the smooth rock wall, enjoying the feeling of the cool stone against her steaming facade. The buzzing sound of equines mingling down the stone pathway that she assumed led into a large clearing that everyone was gathering in, rang in her harks as her lungs sucked in as much oxygen as they possibly could.
Cheveyo had known that the outside world was getting bad, but after seeing that creature with it's intestines hanging from a hole in it's side as an eye dangled from it's socket, she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to keep down the few bites of grass she had ingested before going to her lookout. Swallowing hard the mare took a few steps away from the wall and looked down the short tunnel knowing eventually she would have to go face the masses...but for the time being she was content standing here replaying that gruesome sight over and over again.

"Speech"
[Tag: @[Solace] ]
[Words: -9-5-8]
[Muse: Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgrave]
[Notes: Woot, audition post put to good use. recycled starters are the best starters<3]