Open Running Off the Track - Printable Version

haze like a fever

i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet

The haze of summer sits against her mahogany body like a purring tiger, first winding against one flank before moving to caress the other. Wishbone revels in the bliss of the heat, enjoying the thickness of the humidity. It reminds her of Tephra, with their endless summer days and ashen skies, and her thoughts are nostalgic as she stands beneath the shade of a sycamore.

Although her eyes are closed to the light of the sun, they flicker open at the sound of someone falling heavily to the ground. Wishbone’s amber eyes take in the shape of a mare sitting among the emerald of the summertime grass. There’s no breeze to stir the blades around the mare, yet the bend against the slope of her shoulders and the curve of her belly.

First a sable mouth moves out of the shade of the large tree before the rest of her slender, lithe body follows. Wishbone’s long legs bring her easily into the sunlight and in front of the other mare, mingled expressions of amusement and concern caught in the sunset of her eyes.

“Damn, honey, are you alright?” Although she’s a heiress to a kingdom and daughter to a king of a different kingdom, Wishbone’s never been one with a clean mouth. Polite, maybe — instilled from the manners her parents taught her — but the polite mouth of a sailor. “You look like you’ve been traveling for years.”

credit to eliza of adoxography.

haze like a fever

She’s never been Beyond (that’s what she calls the places beyond Beqanna, in her mind) but the thrill for adventure and discovery paints a delicious, wild picture in her mind. Perhaps there are lands far more colorful than Beqanna — where the grass is as blue as their skies and the sky is as green as their grass — or perhaps there are lands torn apart by the sword of war. She often dreams of the Beyond, making a name for herself in a land where there is no reputation of her father’s, and Wishbone will find herself waking covered in a thin layer of excited perspiration.

She can tell this stranger is from the Beyond (the scents of the unknown lay thickly across her body, pressing bitterly against Wishbone’s nose) and her mind urges her to ask a thousand questions that already fall heavily on her tongue. Yet this newcomer doesn’t seem to want to discuss her past and Wishbone feels mingled disappointment and empathy marry with her enthusiasm.

Instead, she is asking about Beqanna. It’s a simple question, all things considered, but the answer is far more difficult. Wishbone drags in a breath doused in summer humidity before answering. “This is Beqanna. There’s a lot of different horses here, from all different walks of life.” She hopes this is a suitable answer for the stranger, as vague as it may be. How do you explain dragon-shifting and ice-molding and time-warping to a stranger who has only just arrived?

“My name’s Wishbone. I come from Nerine, a kingdom in the north.” She wonders briefly if the mare knows what a ‘kingdom’ is. “What’s your name?”

credit to eliza of adoxography.