darling everything's on fire, Pollock

[Ryatah]

“What have I become, my sweetest friend?
Everyone I know goes away in the end."

There are few parts of Beqanna that are unknown to her. Deftly she steps along the well-worn path, hardly concentrating on where she places the next footstep. She simply walks, slipping easily amongst the trunks of trees, and her slender ears swiveling to catch the sounds of the wind rustling the verdant leaves — her cue to dip her head, avoiding the low-hanging branches. Her blindness — scarred sockets, dark and ugly against otherwise porcelain skin, the illusion of dephless holes against the stark white — was apart of her now, and how strange it was to think that she had now lived well over half of her life without eyes, rather than the way she had been born.

The forest had not been as popular back then. She remembers she would disappear into the shadows, when she was tired of the politics, tired of her heart hurting, tired of the faceless voices that surrounded her. But now she can hear them as she walks, the shifting of the wind bringing with it the notes of conversation, and it brings a soundless sigh across her lips. She was used to change. Nothing ever remained the same, not even her. Especially not her.

Immortality had kept her alive, but not ageless. The harrows of life had done that favor for her. A heart can only break so many times before it no longer pieces back together (there are pieces of her scattered everywhere, pieces of her carried by others that she will never get back), just as the vessel that was her body could only be abused so many times before it lost its luster. She was lovely, in her own tattered, worn-out kind of way. The soft curves of her body, the way her pearl-colored mane fell in cascading tendrils against the subtle arch of her neck. When the breeze draped her forelock at just the right angle across her face it hid the sightly scars, and maybe for a moment she was still timeless and beautiful.

Suddenly, she stops. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. She tilts her head, testing the air around her. She had expected to find the scent of a deer, for the sound reminded her of antler's scratching against bark. Instead, she is met with the masculine scent of a stallion, and while many things about her have changed, some things have remained the same; she is curious. Curiosity has been known to get the better of her, but she steps forward anyway, feeling the warmth of the sun as it filters through the tops of the trees. "Hello?" The lyrics of her voice seem to hang in the midst of the warm summer air, and she takes another step forward, but finds it best to stop there. She enjoyed pushing her luck, but only so far. There are some things you can't take back once given.

RYATAH

you could have it all, my empire of dirt