Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna

It was pride that turned angels into devils

The stallion’s whole manner seemed to melt into something utterly inviting – like the dry, straw bed girt by gold that she had seen so often in her dreams. Not at all did Zahra, the oblivious, the naive and the playful, know the truth about her beloved fantasy; that it was the same gilt cave which harboured her forever embraced parents (another dream, that was not quite as wonderful); that in fact, her mother’s bones lay in the far north and not in that cosy den, bleaching beneath the wrathful tides of Frostfall.

Bird new the truth. The tiny tortured kitsune remembered well that fateful day beneath a cold, forsaking sun, and those horrors only fed her bitter distrust of the stallion they had found – and all others of their cruel, barbaric kind. She watched discontentedly, ducking clear of the meandering tail as it drew near with tumbling white hair blow-drying in the wind. The puppy’s insulated hocks fell tentatively across the soggy loam by her sister’s gilded hind hoof and she pressed closely against the pasty, bony pillar of leg growing above it, set to the spot even as her young, enthusiastic sister began to rummage clumsily beneath the awkward collar she carried.

He was impressed, unmistakably and went further than visual expression to comment favourably (even if it was barely a whispered breath). Zahra was thrilled of course, flattered by the praise and thought warmly of her spiderling sister whose effort she could not have done without. The ribbon streamed like a glorified web, broader and still more splendid – it was indeed a trophy in her immature opinion. The crow-mare in the forest back east had frowned upon it with a cynical eye, and in general she had rattled the fine filly’s vulnerable confidence; but Zero had sooth that fray with his gentile words. The colt was a marvel she still cherished, easily the closest friend she had found along the corridors of the maze called life.

“Thanks,” she giggled softly between each sway of her black and white, pointed skull, but soon paused as he summoned her attention with a statement most curious. Although decorated vastly in things Zahra was no materialistic child. It had not crossed her mind that spilling blood upon him was anything more than a neat trick – with the added bonus of fixing him up. Golden eyes glittered with interest as they fell with hidden reserve upon the black holes that were his, and she nodded briskly, as though to assure she was listening.

Ashamin went on to request a cradle - a bed - for his egg, and the foal was taken instantly back to the warm cradle of legs she had once folded across; so too the moment which she had given the same comfort to the kitsune below her.

“We can do that,” she hummed quickly with a smile, effectively lying through her teeth, because the ribbon was in truth the greatest fruit of their labour to date. White lashes fluttered as her quivering lips skimmed the trinket he had pulled from the water – it rested like an icy stone against her breast, thrilling, chilling as his hot, musky breath lingered on like an eerie fog. It was the first occasion she had been given something so graciously – all the other adornments had been retrieved from a hole in the earth, an old badger’s set, presumably placed by her father before… well before he and her mother went to sleep.

Real expectation, and the weight of accountability was not something she was well accustomed too, and it’s choking claws fastened swiftly about the quickening pulse of her heart. “Ah… Asha…” she blurted suddenly, unable to quickly recall the full length of his name as rapidly as the anxiousness consumed her thoughts. “But I… it will take us days! You are a very big horse…” she whispered nervously, sizing him up with broadening eyes and gulping hard the bubble of hot saliva in her throat. The ribbon had taken a full morning’s concentration.

Ashamin, though perhaps not as tall as her mother – or the giant black monster that haunted her sleep – was enormous as he waited before the starving filly. Crafting an item that could help hold the little unhatched ‘panion close (if only he had wings), would be a challenge of similar proportions.