Life is boring, the Gates are boring, this is in my mind a hands down fact. Nothing ever seemed to change, and when it did the disruption was so miniscule that it hardly caused a ripple in the fabric. Little and less of a crease in the Kingdom, let alone the whole of Beqanna. Stale and flat, that is what I think as I chew idly on the spring grasses. My thoughts were the exact opposite in regards to the food. That alone could be enough to keep any horse here. There was nothing in my opinion that could compare to the rich sweetness that somehow was absorbed in our fields. Maybe it was magic, maybe it was luck. I didn’t know either way, and it wasn’t something I wasted my life away thinking on.

My ears give little in the way of Sidra’s approach, but I am observant and that makes up for what little they detect anymore. Everything is becoming hushed whispers in my world, and I am irritated that it becomes harder and harder to keep this fact from the others. I don’t catch most of what she says, my ears swivel on my head as I strain to make out her sounds. going?  The word ends in a question, the syllables I manage to read falling from her velvet mouth. I’m not the best lip reader in truth, but I am learning and I am trying. “Going?...” I let the question trail off, looking over the other growing girl. A memory of hide and seek whispers its way across my conscious, and I am filled with joy and longing. Everything seemed so much simpler when we were children and I have changed so much since then. Both in my appearance and my demeanor I think to myself, remembering just how little and dark I had been. How my coat hadn’t yet faded into patches of grey, how shy and meek I was, afraid of my own shadow. Nothing stays the same, I stand tall and lanky, still growing into my body. I always wonder when my growth will end, I know that it won’t last forever, but it threatens to prove me wrong. As silly as that sounds.

”I see you’ve not died after all.” I gripe, my mouth still full of grass. I don’t bother at all to chew and swallow before speaking, my eyes train themselves to her mouth again. Maybe I could make out more of the conversation the second go round.

I watch her still, lazily chewing at my mouthful of grass. My copper eyes fix themselves to her mouth, and I beg myself to make out the syllables. Faintly I can hear her, but only just. I know and fear that soon my hearing will leave me altogether, and I couldn’t be happier in a sense. I’ve accepted my fate in this aspect, there was nothing I could do to stop it, nothing I could do to prolong it. I gulp the last bite, blinking once but quickly. I couldn’t afford to miss a thing, and lately my eyes have adjusted for the skill my ears had surrendered.

”Ug, Sidra don’t remind me.” I frown at the mention of my height. I would gladly be deaf, but I could not stand the thought of holding any resemblance to my Sire. “I don’t want to be tall, not like him” My eyes narrow, and I know that she knows to whom I refer. There was always one thing I had been jealous of, and that was the kind father Sidra and Sahm had. Not a cruel, unliked beast that had raped my mother. That had forced her to bear his child, unwillingly. I was a mistake, a plain and simple fact. Where she was born of love and trust, I was conceived in force. 

The suggestion of having some fun, struck me unsurely. It teased at the nature I tried my best to repress, the thoughts that found me that were..wrong. Sometimes I disgusted myself with things I thought about. I would squint my eyes so hard to attempt to rid my head of them, it never worked for long. I don’t want to seem awkward, even more awkward than I already am, so I nod. My patchy dial tugging up and then down as I agree. ”Yeah okay, why not?” I shrug trying to appear indifferent. “The Falls isn’t far, we could probably make it back before nightfall. Or there is the Chamber just east of that, you remember that ugly guy always bothering Reuen. He stays there, and the Queen is a witch I hear.” My interest carries me away with conversation, I’m itching to leave, wherever she chooses.