Ashen steel ears slip back, drooping to the side of my crown. Dejection comes quite often, sad, sorrow weighs far heavier than any other emotion, for it gnaws at your bones like the cold, cold wind and it freezes every muscle in your frame. It makes you feel like lead, heavy and burdensome. My mother had often told me how much of a burden I had been. The soundless one, the one that could not scream if needed, the one who could not say my name or try and match the melody of birds. But mostly, she had been shouldered the burden of a girl who could not find someone else, someone to understand her, to match her like the birds find theirs. Ah, perhaps it was that thought of never having a grandchild from me, that made her so stricken. I pause, pressing all four hooves into the dirt beneath. Moist with winter's cool rains, soon going to give way to slick mud. I stare down to my feet, the deadened grass mottled in places, the beaten tracks worn to reveal an expanse of clear dirt, a blank canvas so to speak.
My ears twist, capturing Ramiel's voice, he is kind in his gesture and I can tell he isn't quite sure what to do. I roll my shoulders in a delicate shrug, and take those few steps forward, breaching out gap. I press my nose against his shoulder, ever so gently. Before reeling back. Not many took kindly to touch, especially a strange breaching personal spaces. I had learnt early on in my life that touch was as good as any words. If you were angry teeth could leave a nasty mark, sadness, it would melt you into a puddle and touch, a single gesture could say a thousand unspoken words.
Mouthing the words, I try, I try and get increasingly frustrated. Adelphia. I mouth, over and over again, longing to scream it to the darkening skies above. Adelphia I try it slow, I try it fast and I am certain he is unable to read my ash mottled lips, so I scrape the ground, furious at myself, furious at the world for not gifting me with a voice. And as I scrape the blank canvas on the ground, I find the lines drawn neatly across the dirt to some advantage. Upon a large blank spot, my tentative hoof attempts to line things. A.H.D.E.L.L.F.E.E.H.A.H. I write what I imagine it sounds. It seems useless then, and I scrape my hoof over the words, wiping clean the moth-eaten earth and then lifting my head back to gaze at the steed. Ramiel seemed far calmer than most, he did not attempt to be harsh, his words were gentle in a way the wind caressed me, unknowing of the burdens that weigh heavy upon my soul.
Adelphia. I mouth, every part of my lips I take it slowly. Hoping he understood, and then, with a sharp direction of my nose I turn to what was the path that led me to the field. Home. I mouth, again. Slowly, assuredly with every part of my lips. The twinkle in my eye of promised tears not letting on. Home. I say again, if only the sound accompanied my lips. I step closer again, outstretching my fine neck, swan-like and draped in ashen tendrils. My muzzle touches his shoulder once more. Thank you. Thank you for your patience.
adelphia
i'll miss you like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky