05-23-2019, 04:24 PM
With muscles pulled taut and rigid underneath her mahogany coat, her slender ears catch every minute sound. The way the trees shift in the wind, and the sounds smaller animals make as they rustle across the bramble and brush. But there is something louder, then, something that makes her flinch. She sees his antlers first, and she almost relaxes. It is not until he moves between trees, revealing his equine form, that she can feel that familiar fear and tension tightening in her chest.
Their eyes lock, and she instantly wants to disappear and run forward all at once.
He freezes, and she doesn’t move. They stand in a stalemate, both of them with nowhere to go. Her eyes hold the gray of his, unwavering and yet entirely uncertain. She knows she should turn, that she should not even dare to see where this might go. But her forced solitude had eaten away at her, and she could feel that desperation for something, anything, trying to claw its way out of her chest.
They don’t have to be friends, she decides. She just wants to know his name.
She moves forward, one hesitant step, and then two. The sound of leaves and sticks being crushed beneath her hooves seems incredibly loud in the silence that has fallen around them, and she nearly cringes at it. Each step feels louder than the last, and she finally can’t take it anymore, and so she stops. She is close enough now that she can better see the storm-cloud color of his eyes, and the way the antlers twist from his brow and tangle upwards.
“Hi,” Her voice is softer than she would have liked, raspy from never being used. She is hyperaware of how it sounds, and she tries to swallow the grate of it away. “I’m Brinly.” Her own name feels thick and foreign, unable to remember the last time she had a reason to say it. There is another stretch of quiet, and it feels longer than it likely is, before asks hesitantly and a little ineptly, “Who are you?”
@[brigade]
Their eyes lock, and she instantly wants to disappear and run forward all at once.
He freezes, and she doesn’t move. They stand in a stalemate, both of them with nowhere to go. Her eyes hold the gray of his, unwavering and yet entirely uncertain. She knows she should turn, that she should not even dare to see where this might go. But her forced solitude had eaten away at her, and she could feel that desperation for something, anything, trying to claw its way out of her chest.
They don’t have to be friends, she decides. She just wants to know his name.
She moves forward, one hesitant step, and then two. The sound of leaves and sticks being crushed beneath her hooves seems incredibly loud in the silence that has fallen around them, and she nearly cringes at it. Each step feels louder than the last, and she finally can’t take it anymore, and so she stops. She is close enough now that she can better see the storm-cloud color of his eyes, and the way the antlers twist from his brow and tangle upwards.
“Hi,” Her voice is softer than she would have liked, raspy from never being used. She is hyperaware of how it sounds, and she tries to swallow the grate of it away. “I’m Brinly.” Her own name feels thick and foreign, unable to remember the last time she had a reason to say it. There is another stretch of quiet, and it feels longer than it likely is, before asks hesitantly and a little ineptly, “Who are you?”
B R I N L Y
burn until our lives become the embers
burn until our lives become the embers
@[brigade]