Black as it was, depthless and without end: stretching infinitely towards the horizon line… the ocean rolled and its ebb and flow brought little more than the song of the rolling tide with it. Even painted with the myriad of stars above there was only darkness and endless void to accompany the moonlight that glinted on the peaks of small waves. Sand bled into soil and the water lapped it, stained and wetted the ground giving rise to a salted but loamy smell of primordial land, one accompanied by the faint undertone of dew and wild sage. This wild was consumed not suddenly, but slowly, as the eerie fog rolled across the waters and poured itself onto the beach at the edge of the expansive field. Through each stalk of grass, and through each swaying plant it bled and wound itself: touching and combing through like a lover’s fingers toying with hair.
Patches of snow began to wheeze and crack, ice forming on the surface and glinting like the eyes of a thousand unseen creatures all peering out from the utter black. non-Euclidean shapes haunted the shadows and the ground, swaying and moving in such ways that the mind tormented itself to find the truth in the echo and verve, in the ripples that felt like whatever these were they were there… and yet not at all. Such it was that from the waters there was shape and form, and sound akin to hooves breaking the surface of the water. Familiar and yet not so, it was shaped like a horse; but one that too perfect. Its coat too smooth, figure too lean and muscled, too much life and at the same time movements that were jaunty and sudden… like a corpse in its death throes.
From it’s maw teeth could be seen beneath the lips and water coughed and spilled forth, choking and gasping: as if fresh from birth. Shaking and chilled the salt clung to its body but not enough to prevent ice as it formed and crusted the shaggy fur. Perfection began to change and where smooth it had been, now fur coated it and color too became more notable: gray and black, patched and strange. The face half white and split perfectly so; but it’s eyes, oh those eyes… they remained as they had been. Grey-green and smoldering, the thick lashes darkening the already bizarre stare and where whites may’ve have been there just seemed to be black… but only until the head was turned and then: the black was no more.
Rasping and spitting it carried forward beyond the edge of the water and into the grasses, crickets and birds: night songs echoing in ancient ears. What beauty it saw it watched with careless attention, instead it stopped after a time to chew and to eat… to taste the tang of the grass and recall the clover and its texture, memories danced in its mind and for a moment it considered the world around it with little more than the affections a spider gives to a fly. It lifts its head, bends the neck and cracks the old bones: its shoulders rolling back and like a feline predator it moves with a sway in its hips and a pace that spoke of leisure. It stops beneath a sliver of moonlight, waits and lingers before stepping into the light- the body bathed in the glow and all the curves given shadow and shape.
It speaks to itself, gruff and hoarse at first, touched with the accent of a land long list to time. ‘Yidhra.’ it breathes, a name… a word: a title. The taste of it is sour and mealy, it comes with the scent of decayed fish and rotted wood, and its texture is something between putrefying meat and maggots writhing in on themselves… it recalls that this was the name of it’s grave, where the corpse was supposed buried and so it names itself this.
Alone, it gathers itself and it recognizes itself as she, as Yidhra The head tossed and eyes peering into the firefly clouds dancing over scattered snow, watching the shadows and gloom: and all the life that wandered the night.