I'd found a small cave to rest in, a narrow cavern of stone just barely large enough to turn around in if I kept my head low. The entrance is hidden in a thick bramble of greenery, and as always I wait to make sure the coast is clear before emerging.
It is early morning, a time when most of Sylva still sleeps, wearied from their midnight cavorting and pre-dawn cackling. It is a time when I can be alone, I have found. The trail to the stream is straight and narrow, but I circle wide, meandering through the woods as though I have come from an entirely different direction. My senses are primed for noise, but there is only the wind and the soft calls of the birds overhead.
Overhead, the sun shines down, barely muted by the fiery canopy. The light dapples my buttermilk coat and brings out the brightness of my navy markings and the sheen of my tucked-tight wings. In my reflection, I recognize my familiar crooked blaze. 'Crooked like your father's smile', Mother had told me once, though I was never able to find out if she meant that as a compliment.
I wonder where she is these days. Maybe she'd found my father after all. Or perhaps she'd found someone better, since her stories of my absent father did not paint him in the best of lights. I see her sometimes, in the shape of my reflection. I have her face, open and happy even when I am neither. I have her eyes too, I realize as I stare into the rippling water.
Broken eyes.
Eyes that match the scarred expanse of my dun hide, torn and scarred in a hundred places. The scars are thickest along the sides of my ribs where their hooves scrape, and along my crest where they hold me too tightly with teeth that are not always dull.
I sigh and move away from the stream. I had not wanted to dwell on that in this rare quiet moment. Instead I turn my face up to the bright sunlight, stepping forward to where a fallen tree has cleared a bit of canopy, and the morning light beams down warmly. The birdsong and the trickle of the water are calm and soothing, but despite my momentary relaxation the tension never truly leaves me.
It is early morning, a time when most of Sylva still sleeps, wearied from their midnight cavorting and pre-dawn cackling. It is a time when I can be alone, I have found. The trail to the stream is straight and narrow, but I circle wide, meandering through the woods as though I have come from an entirely different direction. My senses are primed for noise, but there is only the wind and the soft calls of the birds overhead.
Overhead, the sun shines down, barely muted by the fiery canopy. The light dapples my buttermilk coat and brings out the brightness of my navy markings and the sheen of my tucked-tight wings. In my reflection, I recognize my familiar crooked blaze. 'Crooked like your father's smile', Mother had told me once, though I was never able to find out if she meant that as a compliment.
I wonder where she is these days. Maybe she'd found my father after all. Or perhaps she'd found someone better, since her stories of my absent father did not paint him in the best of lights. I see her sometimes, in the shape of my reflection. I have her face, open and happy even when I am neither. I have her eyes too, I realize as I stare into the rippling water.
Broken eyes.
Eyes that match the scarred expanse of my dun hide, torn and scarred in a hundred places. The scars are thickest along the sides of my ribs where their hooves scrape, and along my crest where they hold me too tightly with teeth that are not always dull.
I sigh and move away from the stream. I had not wanted to dwell on that in this rare quiet moment. Instead I turn my face up to the bright sunlight, stepping forward to where a fallen tree has cleared a bit of canopy, and the morning light beams down warmly. The birdsong and the trickle of the water are calm and soothing, but despite my momentary relaxation the tension never truly leaves me.
