when you speak dreams and reality collide

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

Camelia can’t imagine what the little girl must be feeling. How disregarded she must feel, how hopefully she must pray, how broken her heart must be. As a child, the mare was always enveloped in the warm arms of love – from her parents, from Mast, from the Gates – and she rarely felt the bite of loneliness and despair. She worries (maybe like the girl worries for her mother) about Mast, praying that he is safe and not crushed beneath a collection of tossed rocks, but Camelia has thrown herself into her work in effort to stop that worrying.

The dunskin feels her heart pang with sympathy when the filly says “Mama” in such a hopeful tone. Camelia hates to disappoint, but a piece of her hopes she will become Mama to the betrayed little girl. Her insides warm, however, when the girl snuggles into her side and she feels her chilled skin against her warmer skin. Although she has no wings to swathe herself in, Camelia does have a thick winter coat from years of enduring snow and ice.

She introduces herself as Terra and Camelia smiles softly. “A pretty name to match a pretty face,” she says, just as a winged stallion approaches them. The dunskin wants to stand up, but with Terra cuddled warmly into her side, she doesn’t. Camelia’s muscles do tighten slightly, aware of both her and the filly’s vulnerable positions. He introduces himself as Phaedrus, gives a short nod in her direction, and seems to try and prod Terra from Camelia’s side.

A deep-set, instinctive motherly side of Camelia prays with everything in her soul that the girl would stay at her side. Thankfully, the girl seems comfortable nestled into her and she stays. Terra gives her name again and then mutters something about her mother being gone. Camelia’s heart wrenches again and she huffs a warm breath of air over the filly’s ears in comfort. “Terra, I’m sorry about your mama,” she starts softly. A quick, apologetic glance is directed at the stallion. She doesn’t want to step on his toes or make him angry, but she’s already too attached to the filly to let go now.

“But I know somewhere warm we can go. It might make you feel better.” Camelia exhales another foggy breath over Terra’s ears again, as if she were trying to warm them like a mother to her child’s frozen fingers. “If you want, we can look for your mama once spring comes. Or I could be your new mama. I promise I won’t leave you.”

Camelia