Landless, directionless; the small brown mare that cannot seem to shake the fuzziness from her fur, drifts about in a small lazy circle. She is grazing and sniffing at the flowers, just enjoying the day that dawns full of promise for her.
Perhaps she’ll find companionship or adventure! Or a bee to follow back to the hive, despite knowing that honey is sticky and not something she might like to eat. There might be a tree in her future, to scratch her butt against and nap under… it seems like a day for dreaming. Just don’t ask Bean to tell how she knows it’s that kind of day for her.
Every day is like that!
The brown mare doesn’t notice the mist that creeps through the meadow. Not until it grows as thick as pea soup and she lifts her little fuzzy head with grass poking out of her mouth, chews once then twice like a dumbstruck cow, and just blinks at the mist surrounding her. It feels like a bubble that she’s stuck in, not that Bean has actually tried to escape despite the pleasant disorientation that settles over her. Hmm…
Unlike those that walk, run, or fly; Bean just stood there chewing on a mouthful of grass. She bent down to grab another mouthful and came up spitting sand and a peculiar word or two not fit to be mentioned here. “Ick!” she spat, feeling the grit still on her tongue as she realized she now stood on sand instead of grass. Hey, where are the flowers and the trees, the birds and the bees?
Her eyes narrow as the mist dissipates and she finds herself staring up a sky so blue and bright, it actually hurts her eyes. She is starting to sweat, as it gathers on her neck and in her armpits as a foamy fine lather. Bean doesn’t like it here - too sandy, too hot, and too bright for anything but a squint. Which makes Bean look ridiculous, which given how fuzzy and generic she is, comes as no surprise.
So, a desert.
Yay.
Her lack of enthusiasm is also not surprising. There must be a reason she is small, kinda plump, and hardy but a horse like her just doesn’t belong in this landscape. She must stick out like a sore thumb and through her squinty gaze, she can make out the shapes of others far off in the distance but it doesn’t occur to her to call out to them.
Probably best not to draw attention to herself anyway. That might be the first smart thought she’s had since the strange mist took her. Her next thought is the grains of sand still in her mouth that she can’t seem to rid herself of and the fact that she is thirsty, and hot. Water might be good to find… oh, another smart thought! Her nostrils flare and flutter, picking at the scent-free air until she just barely smells water.
Bean follows her nose; sometimes her eyes are closed and sometimes, she opens them to peek at her surroundings but she trusts the desert. Which could be a mistake… especially when she ends up stumbling over a dune and sliding down it on her side. Oh nice, sand scrapes to add to heatstroke and dehydration.
The brown mare just lays at the bottom of the dune for a moment, minutes really, as she catches her breath. It comes out in gasps and pants and finally, a groan as she struggles to her feet. Bean feels like giving up, except she’s not the giving up sort and her nostrils flare again - water! Closer now than before, brilliant and blue in a way that the mean sky above her is not.
She is not a good judge of distance and each step is trudging and slow but eventually, the brown mare reaches the oasis. Brown from head to hoof, fuzzy and sandy, she stares at it as suspicion fills her simple face. “Are you real?” she asks it, feeling a terrible mix of doubt and hope seize hold of her. It seemed more polite to ask the oasis about its existence than to go pawing and slurping at it. Plus, she wasn’t keen on getting another mouthful of sand at the moment.
ooc: bean is not affiliated with any land yet and suffers from exhaustion, dehydration, heatstroke and some sand abrasions because she’s a dunce and can’t walk properly lol. edited only for proper paragraph spacing.