SIRIN
The girl isn’t exactly quiet.
It is enough to draw her attention up and away from her own reflection staring back at her in the water. Sirin flicks her fluted ears forward as the crashing commences through the woodland. She looks ok: no hair is out of place, no thorns pinch her sides, and no mud clings to her ankles. Her vanity had at least prompted her to check herself in the stillwater along the riverbank. God only knows who – or what, really, the way they are rattling the ground – she is preparing to meet. It could be a rugged stallion, bulky and scar-laden and eager for something soft to lean on. It could be the prince of an exotic kingdom, somewhere hot and humid and in need of a crown jewel (her exact shade of amethyst). Her heart races to think of all the possibilities. Her future could be barreling towards her now, tearing apart the forest in order to find his lady in waiting. She puts on her most charming smile as the foliage parts…
And still wears it – briefly – as the other girl mirrors her on the other bank.
Quickly, it fades from her face. What replaces it is not nearly as pleasant. Her lips purse together into a thin line as she stares down the intruder of her would-be bliss. This is not how it is supposed to go. A filly is not who she intended to spend her first free-time with on the road. She is meant to be curled into the strong side of a warrior or pressed under the neck of a wayward prince. Sirin ruffles her wings in the pale girl’s direction, turning to dismiss her in dramatic fashion. She hears her ‘hello’ but doesn’t care; the child has ruined enough. But just as she takes a step back into the treeline, Sirin hears an odd sound.
She spins around just in time to see the odd-winged filly crash into the water below. It sends an unkind tinkle of laughter into the cool air from the mare’s violet lips. A taste of mud is karma enough for the kid’s interference. But then everything changes. Her heart lurches for altogether different reasons when the girl goes under and disappears from sight. The water takes her, claims her for the transgression of getting too close. Sirin stands helpless for too long. She thinks it is over until a cream head bobs up out of the dark water downstream. Then she launches herself off of the slippery riverbank and into the air.
The splashed-colored mare pumps her wings hard to stay afloat with no lifting currents of wind beneath her. The only currents that exist here are the ones that carry the girl further and further away from where they were, deep currents that carve out earth and chisel away rock. The same ones that now make the filly a plaything, pulling and pushing her this way and that. Sirin sees her again and calls out, “hold on!” Hold onto what, though? Her spirits, which must be sinking as quickly as her little body? Her wits, which are likely too panic-stricken to be of much help now? A log? Yes! The log. The log that is going to overtake her if she doesn’t move fast enough. “Hook your front legs over that log rolling up.” Her eyes dart to the river ahead. There’s a sandbar in the same trajectory as the log. If the filly can only reach it…
But there’s no way. She can see it now, the girl will miss.
She draws a deep breath in, considering. It would be so easy to fly away, so easy to find that muddy patch at the edge of the woods and try again. She could try somewhere else too, somewhere more populated and free of stupid children who do stupid, stupid things. “Fuck!” The pegasus falls into the ice-cold water a dozen or so feet ahead of Nyxa. Her wings are like weights that threaten to pull her down but she is too pissed to let that happen now. “Get over here! Grab onto me,” she commands the girl, because she is the halfway point between her and the log. She will carry her over if it’s the last thing she does, damnit.
fire in my bloodstream, water in my lungs
@[Nyxa]