and all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be -- Kahzie Pony

[Lillia]

The water comforts her as she cries.

Foreign. Familiar. Alien. Intrinsic. Her paradoxical relationship to reality, embodied: there, against the alabaster of her cheek and scampering down to the pink of her nose, the tears. Warm, salty, sticky, droplets of pure heart that wash away with the running water she submerges herself in. Chest high where for others it may only reach knees. Oh, she thought; Oh, to live.

The warm light of frozen day dapples her skin from above. Deep in her chest, a roiling angst grows, one that demands its voice heard and heeds no caution, one that stems from the mortal nature of her existence, here, so unlike the ways in which she existed before (everything, nothing). Here, in the privacy of her own making, Lillia makes room for the existentialism to spew from her, overcome by a feeling even her body cannot place as familiar. 

A darkness, a coldness. An aloneness that sits in her chest, unmovable, that begs for something, anything, to satiate its desire for... what? Connection? Lillia struggles to evoke in her mind an understanding of the visceral thing which neither she, in spirit, nor she, in body, could hope to unravel. No amount of angelic assurance in her belongingness to the universe can save her from this.

Whatever this is, she sniffs.

Dejected and uncentered, Lillia releases her grasp on time.

@Moira

[Moira]

There is something strange about the way she walks, as if she is somehow constrained despite the long strides she can make on gold and violet striped legs. That strangeness is mostly disguised by her other physical aspects, like the soft frills of the fins that grow along the back of her legs and drape from her sides. Moira is scaled as well, with gills behind the fins at her cheeks, and she knows any who see her will know she is a creature meant for a life beneath the water.

That she keeps close to the river comes as no surprise, and every now and then she wades into the shallows and splashes the delicate grey scales of her underbelly with the cold water. Drying out is an uncomfortable sensation, and not one that Moira wants to repeat.

She is not heading anywhere in particular, so when she draws close to the pale mare weeping in the water, she pauses.

It is not the angel that draws Moira in, but the bluegill that circles her left hind foot and burbles his concern at how close it has come to his nest.

“Would you mind moving a bit to your right?” She asks the stranger. Her voice is grating when heard above the water, so she uses it infrequently. Speaking louder to be heard over the water and space will make the sound even worse, but the fry are only a few days away from hatching and such a late clutch is already going to face more than their share of troubles.

Her gaze does return back to the older woman, and Moira frowns in concern at her state as well. She cannot magically communicate with the other horse the way she can with her Fish Friend, and so she must ask aloud again, with concern audible even in her shrill tones.

“Can I help you? You don’t look too good, and it’s kind of bumming me out.” She feels empathy, is what she means with the last few words, but she’s still learning to phrase things politely, and not just blurt out whatever she feels to her mother and siblings.

@Lillia