05-28-2015, 02:47 PM
The jungle is quiet, pressed into silence by the rain that falls in sheets around her. The birds are in their nests and the monkeys pressed beneath the canopy. Ephrelle walks between the widely spaced trees in the oldest part of the forest, feeling the rain seep through her thin coat and watching it bead on her long lashes before she bats it away. She grows every day – not so obviously as she had in her first year of life of course. She resembles each of her parents, though she knows only Dorne, and will someday be a lovely creature. For now she is a leggy yearling with a straight profile, and were it not for her varnished appaloosa coat and the well-mixed blood of Beqanna’s populace, she might easily be mistaken for a young Andalusian.
The honeybee on her chest is hanging upside down on one of the petals of her crimson flower, shielding itself from the rain that cannot truly harm it. Since she had sworn herself to the jungle, it has been busy on her coat, flying back and forth from one end of her body to the other. When she truly joins the ranks it will begin to expand on itself, but for now the only evidence of its existence beside the tiny bee itself is the smallest of golden hexagons below her left eye.
Ephrelle is not looking for anyone today, and she knows that most of her sisters (how strange it still seems; she is truly a part of them now!) will be sheltering themselves from the storm. The thunder has already begun to grow distant, signaling the end of the storm, but the young mare has been walking through it since the beginning, several hours past. She is avoiding her mother, though she will not admit this, knowing that each passing hour brings Dorne’s departure closer. Don’t think about it, she tells herself, think of something else.
Ahead, she sees something moving through the trees, and she stops. Her sense of smell is impaired by the rain, but after a few seconds of observation she is sure that it is no dangerous leopard, and carries on. Once closer, she sees another horse – neither her mother nor her brother – and she approaches with a smile and a quiet: “Hello.”
The honeybee on her chest is hanging upside down on one of the petals of her crimson flower, shielding itself from the rain that cannot truly harm it. Since she had sworn herself to the jungle, it has been busy on her coat, flying back and forth from one end of her body to the other. When she truly joins the ranks it will begin to expand on itself, but for now the only evidence of its existence beside the tiny bee itself is the smallest of golden hexagons below her left eye.
Ephrelle is not looking for anyone today, and she knows that most of her sisters (how strange it still seems; she is truly a part of them now!) will be sheltering themselves from the storm. The thunder has already begun to grow distant, signaling the end of the storm, but the young mare has been walking through it since the beginning, several hours past. She is avoiding her mother, though she will not admit this, knowing that each passing hour brings Dorne’s departure closer. Don’t think about it, she tells herself, think of something else.
Ahead, she sees something moving through the trees, and she stops. Her sense of smell is impaired by the rain, but after a few seconds of observation she is sure that it is no dangerous leopard, and carries on. Once closer, she sees another horse – neither her mother nor her brother – and she approaches with a smile and a quiet: “Hello.”