04-07-2016, 12:08 PM
There is something soothing about the ice and isolation in the Tundra. The frozen kingdom wraps itself around me and feels more like home than anywhere else I've been in my short life. But I've never been very good at belonging. And tonight no clouds veil the heavens from view. There is nothing to hide the starlight that coaxes a quiet yearning to rise in my chest. I miss my brother, my twin who'd waded in starlight on his way into the world and who'd arrived knowing he had some kind of intrinsic value. He was a presence from the beginning. The sun shone brighter on him, recognizing his radiance and reaching out to touch a kindred spirit.
I hope he's happy. That his new family has embraced him as one of their own, that his new brother will be a match for his adventurous spirit in ways I am not. Still, my skin aches with his absence, and there is a hollowness inside my ribcage, a place next to my heart that is dim and empty now that he is gone.
So I walk, my tiny hooves more restless than they have any right to be. I have a home too now, just like he does. A very nice home with a gentle, caring lady who has shown me more affection than I ever knew from my birth mother. That should be enough to hold me here. But I can't hide from the stars and I can't reach them, and all that leaves me is these wandering feet.
I am no child of the night any more than I am one of the day. Rile was both somehow, cloaked in starlight and shining like the sun. I, though...I am whispers and smoke, ephemeral and ethereal and barely substantial enough to stay solid. I keep expecting to come undone, to dissolve into ashes and dust and blow away in the wind. In the moonlight, the muddy brown-black of my coat fades to an indistinguishable shade of dark, and my scruff of a mane takes on a hint of silver instead of ashes and mist. I travel mainly through the shadows, where the motion of my tiny body is less visible, and that stripe of a baby mane and tail aren't quite so bright.
I pass a few other wanderers on my unexpected journey, and with the first I just hide in the shrubbery lining the pathway until he has walked past, striding quickly toward some unknown destination. The second call is a closer one, an aimless ambler who passes within hands of my newest hiding place before a noise catches her interest and she bounds right on past. The third is a man I stumble across, though he seems to be doing nothing but standing and staring at the stars. I can certainly understand the impulse. After all, it's what set me to roaming across unknown territory on my own tonight.
Still, I would have crept by without a second thought were it not for the glimmer of gold in the moonlight, stars gleaming on his skin proclaiming him another soul touched by the heavens like Rile. Despite my intention to stay hidden, my traitorous limbs move on their own and I find myself creeping silently forward to stand beside this star-touched stranger and join him in his stargazing. “Do they call to you too, then?” The words fall unbidden from my lips before I can catch them, a quiet murmur barely above a whisper. I watch the sky, not the man; studying his face would feel too invasive, too demanding. So I fix my gaze on the lights dancing overhead, sparing little more than a darting glance his way as I wait for his reply.
I hope he's happy. That his new family has embraced him as one of their own, that his new brother will be a match for his adventurous spirit in ways I am not. Still, my skin aches with his absence, and there is a hollowness inside my ribcage, a place next to my heart that is dim and empty now that he is gone.
So I walk, my tiny hooves more restless than they have any right to be. I have a home too now, just like he does. A very nice home with a gentle, caring lady who has shown me more affection than I ever knew from my birth mother. That should be enough to hold me here. But I can't hide from the stars and I can't reach them, and all that leaves me is these wandering feet.
I am no child of the night any more than I am one of the day. Rile was both somehow, cloaked in starlight and shining like the sun. I, though...I am whispers and smoke, ephemeral and ethereal and barely substantial enough to stay solid. I keep expecting to come undone, to dissolve into ashes and dust and blow away in the wind. In the moonlight, the muddy brown-black of my coat fades to an indistinguishable shade of dark, and my scruff of a mane takes on a hint of silver instead of ashes and mist. I travel mainly through the shadows, where the motion of my tiny body is less visible, and that stripe of a baby mane and tail aren't quite so bright.
I pass a few other wanderers on my unexpected journey, and with the first I just hide in the shrubbery lining the pathway until he has walked past, striding quickly toward some unknown destination. The second call is a closer one, an aimless ambler who passes within hands of my newest hiding place before a noise catches her interest and she bounds right on past. The third is a man I stumble across, though he seems to be doing nothing but standing and staring at the stars. I can certainly understand the impulse. After all, it's what set me to roaming across unknown territory on my own tonight.
Still, I would have crept by without a second thought were it not for the glimmer of gold in the moonlight, stars gleaming on his skin proclaiming him another soul touched by the heavens like Rile. Despite my intention to stay hidden, my traitorous limbs move on their own and I find myself creeping silently forward to stand beside this star-touched stranger and join him in his stargazing. “Do they call to you too, then?” The words fall unbidden from my lips before I can catch them, a quiet murmur barely above a whisper. I watch the sky, not the man; studying his face would feel too invasive, too demanding. So I fix my gaze on the lights dancing overhead, sparing little more than a darting glance his way as I wait for his reply.