04-22-2020, 07:14 PM
The world is a blur to eyes crusted shut with blood and time and something close to death, the brown blur that murmurs over her and licks her roughly might be horse, or it might be bear, and the child has neither the vision nor the knowledge to tell the difference, so she simply flattens herself beneath the rhythmic assault on her thin body. She must still appear newborn, small and skinny and covered in... something that may once have been afterbirth, but which now cannot be pleasant to be tonguing away. A bleat break away from her lips, her dusty lungs cracking and complaining as air rushes through them, as hungry blood blooms to life and warms her cold, stiff body, and the filly lunges forward awkwardly, numb feet failing to catch her once again.
Already out of breath, she pants and lays still under the mare's busy tongue, blinking the death from her eyes. The vision returns to them with halos that make her squint. A cough wracks her fragile ribcage, it makes her lower lip flap strangely, but such a small detail is likely to go unnoticed by most. Certainly nothing about it strikes the child as very strange, and with the feeling finally returning to her limbs as the thickened blood turns fresh, she tries again to stand on skeletal legs, long and ungainly. Her abdomen tucks in like some starving thing and her hip-bones protrude, yet she lives just the same, unsure what to do about the gnawing emptiness in her belly.
Standing nearly breaks her, her sides heave with effort, but the filly attempts a soft nicker and presses herself against the warmth of the brown mare, leans her small weight against her and shivers, coat clean now, but damp. Only the brown stain of blood still smears across the bright star on her forehead.
The Star.
The whisper makes her ears flick forward and her head fly up. She peers up at the great wall of mare beside her. It is clear that she had heard nothing, that she has said nothing, but there is nobody else.
Crackjaw.
Yellows eyes flash as she latches onto the word, feels it in her bones. Weakly, the red girl looks up again and a strange smile stretches across her jawless face.
"M'Crackthaw!"
Already out of breath, she pants and lays still under the mare's busy tongue, blinking the death from her eyes. The vision returns to them with halos that make her squint. A cough wracks her fragile ribcage, it makes her lower lip flap strangely, but such a small detail is likely to go unnoticed by most. Certainly nothing about it strikes the child as very strange, and with the feeling finally returning to her limbs as the thickened blood turns fresh, she tries again to stand on skeletal legs, long and ungainly. Her abdomen tucks in like some starving thing and her hip-bones protrude, yet she lives just the same, unsure what to do about the gnawing emptiness in her belly.
Standing nearly breaks her, her sides heave with effort, but the filly attempts a soft nicker and presses herself against the warmth of the brown mare, leans her small weight against her and shivers, coat clean now, but damp. Only the brown stain of blood still smears across the bright star on her forehead.
The Star.
The whisper makes her ears flick forward and her head fly up. She peers up at the great wall of mare beside her. It is clear that she had heard nothing, that she has said nothing, but there is nobody else.
Crackjaw.
Yellows eyes flash as she latches onto the word, feels it in her bones. Weakly, the red girl looks up again and a strange smile stretches across her jawless face.
"M'Crackthaw!"
Crackjaw
Dreamscar x Hippogryph
@[bean] sooooo sorry this took so long!
