That wildness in her heart never disappeared, even when her poor decisions buried the creature she is at her core. She can feel that pulsing in her chest when she is spit from the Mountain; and days later, it stills breathes and dances like its own crazed entity at the bottom of her belly. It is like life is combing her hair and washing her face and telling her, “This time, I’ll take care of you.”
Jude walks with a skip, like she is the happiest of accidents—like clouds cushion each of her wandering steps.
A deer crashes in the distance and Jude merely continues to observe the berries before her (such disruption is just a day in the Forest). She wraps pale, delicate lips around a lingering summertime blackberry and closes her eyes. The midnight snack will be perfect—perhaps even exquisite—
The crashing grows closer, ending with a thrashing, bloodied deer and the frenzied silver eyes of a predator.
Initially, Jude is frightened, her body stiff and head held high to attention. Sochi does not see her, not yet. The pegasus thinks it must be safer to step back inch by inch but . . . something in that wild heart of hers begs to differ. She craves the adrenaline that being taken by magic gave her. It is the first thing to make her feel alive in years. She—
Craves that ferocity in the tiger’s jaws.
So, she steps forward, twigs and leaves crunching beneath her hooves. Sochi’s head snaps up, but the racing in Jude’s chest isn’t out of fear: the cold rushing through her veins isn’t because her life might end. It’s Sochi’s eyes, the way they feel; it’s the blood on Sochi’s mouth that quickens her breath.
Still, transfixed by the very last set of eyes she might see, Jude quiets her lungs.
“Beautiful,” she calls, drunken smile curving her face.
@[sochi]
