[open] Did you bring a lighter?

[Kindling]

She has solidified a spot in a higher place, where the melting snow and sloshy-mud cannot find her ghost-pale coat. She is barely a quarter of the evergreen tree beside her, hidden by the massive overhang of branches and masked by the nauseating smell of pine needles.

Her right hind foot is cocked in a relaxed stance, her head held mid-height to level with her back as she inhales deeply and lets it out in a long exhale. She is tired from her journey through the gates, her body had been out of commission too long now, her flesh and bones feeling foreign. Death had made her question if what she thought belonged to her all along was maybe just a temporary carcass to wound and scar. 

Kindling looks weak, weaker than we remember her. Her ribs are prominent, her hip bones exposed, her eye sockets sunken. A woman once beautiful and strong, now no stronger than the cardboard straw in a fountain pop. In due time, her strength will build and soon the skinniness will not be so prominent. Muscle and dominance will be as her body replaces deterioration with determination.

Someone poured a little water on your flame, are you dried enough to ignite again?

She opens her eyes from her overdue nap, the softness of sunrise peaking through the green pine needles. There is still a chill in the air - just how winter liked it. She can feel the springtime sun warm the tips of her nostrils where the light first hits. Winter was hard before but coming back from the dead during winter almost felt impossible. So cold still, a dead kind of cold that needed much thawing out.

Like fire, freshly set, she is hungry for life and power - ready to consume and be a force to be reckoned with again.

After a few minutes, she retreats from her piney escape and chooses one of the randomly worn paths to meander down. Each step she takes feels heavy, it always does this early in the morning- arthritis, age, death, pick one but their effect on her is noticeable. Or it could be chalked up to the cold and how it impacts her bones, making her feel tight and constrained.

What can I do, she ponders as she breaks into a trot, attempting to stretch every firm muscle and ligament, allowing herself to move freely in attempt to loosen her limbs. Death did not account for such things to be in limbo—a selfish beast.

Normally this was all it took—a stretch here and there, and she would begin to feel like her old self. Briefly, fear flashes across her face as a thought takes shape in her brain about the hindrances of old age. Is she second-guessing herself? Did she still have what it takes, or should she find someone who does?

The path eventually led to where the treeline broke, leaving only the open space of the field as the only landscape. Once upon a time this was where she would come to find fresh meat to bring home, another body to fill her army. Now, it seemed almost barren this morning with only the soft distant tune of songbirds and the leftover remnants of frost shining on the limbs of trees.

Her mind spins, reels, tumbled with myriad thoughts: what will become of her now, would anyone barter a place for her skills amongst them? The pale mare stood there, stationary and thoughtful, with the lightest of breezes toying at the tips of her tangled mane. Her stomach churns with anticipation and purpose; this time—her time, she was back for a reason and she would not squander the chance she’d been given.

They say white flame burns the hottest... who would finally bring light to the fire left on embers for too long?