Keeper-
She stands beneath the broad arms of a red maple that has all but lost all of it’s leaves.
Those that have fallen to the earth lay like dead soldiers that have gone out in a bright blaze of glory. The rest blanket her back until she seems part red maple and part horse, but Keeper is nothing as extraordinary as that - she’s just a pony-sized little mare that has taken up residence beneath this particular tree out of all the rest.
For once, she is quieter than usual.
For once, she is still and not chasing after deer or mushrooms.
Keeper is content. Not quite but almost asleep because what better place to take a nap than beneath an old unconcerned tree? She can move closer, throw a hip out against the bark and take some of the weight off her feet if she wills it, counting on the red maple to hold her up long enough to take a nap. Keeper can feel herself close to sleep, blinking eyes that seem heavier from lack of rather than flat out exhaustion. If she stopped doing odd things and slept just a bit more, took a bit better care of herself, she might not be so tired.
Except that Keeper sleeps less and less. Dreams more and more, awake or asleep. Deer and mushrooms, moonlight and lakewater, amethysts and mountains. Mares and stallions prance and parade across the backs of her eyelids, some she recognizes as those that she knows and holds dearest to her pathetic little animal heart, and others have no names or faces that are known to her - strangers, even in her dreams, but ones that she might otherwise one day meet.
Despite it all, the red maple holds her up.
It shakes in the breeze, spilling more leaves down onto her back until she gains an odd blazing hump that doesn’t match the pale gold of her skin but also doesn’t contrast too terribly with it. But every time she breathes, a few leaves fall away from her and flutter down to join their bright brethren on the earth. She'll hear someone coming, the leaves will give her enough warning.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless