where we break when our hearts are strong enough
Something about tonight is different.
She can feel it like an electric charge in the air, something wild and unattainable and dangerous. It skitters on the outskirts of her mind, brushing the edges and never dragging its hooks in her. There is something—something—about it that causes her heart to hammer even louder in her chest, something that makes her pulse begin to spike, the feeling like a bird against the ribcage of her chest. Her legs dance beneath her and she tosses her head, the silk of her wild indigo mane flying and then falling back down to drape against the slender arch of her neck, the mahogany beneath gleaming in the silver light of midnight.
But she doesn’t run.
At least, she doesn’t run until she is commanded to.
The voice comes out of nowhere and she snorts wildly in surprise as it brushes her cheek, the ghosting of breath the only sign that the voice is tied to something very real. She should stop. She should ask questions or fight back or try to sort out the impossibility of the situation but she does none of those things. Instead she plays right into his hand, obeying without even meaning to.
She takes several dancing steps to the side, swinging away from him, and then launches forward. Her tail streams behind her as her thin legs begin to push her forward, something like fear and excitement racing in her throat. She doesn’t stop to think about what would want her to run. Why he wanted her to run. Was she running toward something? Away? None of it makes sense except the pattering of her heart, the edges of her vision going blurry with the need to get away. She leaps over obstacles as they come before her, centering herself and tucking her legs to her chest as she clears the logs and the bramble. She twists her youthful body around the trees, tucking her head beneath low branches.
She levels out, letting her legs carry her faster and faster—faster than she’d ever run before.
She does everything she can to prevent the only thing she cannot: stop.
we can bow 'cause our music's warmer than blood