09-07-2016, 10:55 PM
She can still remember it - her death, like it was yesterday.
Maybe it was, until anger and the Mountain shook everything all up.
It still left a bitter taste in her mouth, coppery and hard.
The earth shook; she felt it, and was unafraid.
How could she fear it?
Once, she flew and once, she died. There was nothing left to fear after that.
Stoney was not brave like the rest of them.
She was not angry and did not stomp her feet in a tantrum at the things taken from them.
Stoney felt it leave her like a sigh - “Oh!”and she was mortal again. Relief flooded her face, crawled up out of her black eyes begging to look at the cloudless sky above the Mountain. She regarded the rock and the sharp blue thinness of the air in a way that she never would have before, before - when she was immortal, and had all the time in the world to look at such things in a way that they would never seem new and surprising to her again. Now, she could look and she could stare, and it was like the blind waking up to sight - she saw, and the seeing shook her to the very core of her being. She almost relished in the fact that her immortality was gone, even though the set of her neck was forever irrevocably altered from that headlong flight off the cliff in which she learned of her immortality.
She grows fearful;
Is too close to the Mountain’s edge and backs up hastily.
Fear tears at her throat with sharp claws and she bites back a cry of terror --
Stoney would never stop reliving that moment over and over again.
The pitch over the cliff and the rush of the air as it goes by her, almost whistling merrily in her ears until she slams into the earth and it is a hard embrace that she finds herself in, neck broken and a trickle of blood from one nostril. Then she rights herself, bones click back into place and everything works just like it should.
She jerks back from the precipice; ashamed at how the sentiment of her death stays with her.
It will haunt her for all of her days, she suspects, swallowing a sigh of self pity.
The pintaloosa climbs down the rocky slopes, careful to pick her way amongst the rocks and the pitfalls of other horses’ steps. What must they have been thinking to go up and down this Mountain? She is curious, but is not long for the curiosity as it dims in her, sparking out as she steps along the grassy way towards the beckoning Forest. Something about the trees promises her safety, solitude even. Maybe because she met her death in the Meadow, she avoids it and skirts the edge of it with nary a glance or the flick of an ear to it.
When she did bother to look up, she saw the glitter of green eyes beneath a shock of hair of muddled mulberry. It stopped her cold in her tracks; not because the green of his eyes were familiar, but because she had never seen anything like them in her short (once immortal) life.
Maybe it was, until anger and the Mountain shook everything all up.
It still left a bitter taste in her mouth, coppery and hard.
The earth shook; she felt it, and was unafraid.
How could she fear it?
Once, she flew and once, she died. There was nothing left to fear after that.
Stoney was not brave like the rest of them.
She was not angry and did not stomp her feet in a tantrum at the things taken from them.
Stoney felt it leave her like a sigh - “Oh!”and she was mortal again. Relief flooded her face, crawled up out of her black eyes begging to look at the cloudless sky above the Mountain. She regarded the rock and the sharp blue thinness of the air in a way that she never would have before, before - when she was immortal, and had all the time in the world to look at such things in a way that they would never seem new and surprising to her again. Now, she could look and she could stare, and it was like the blind waking up to sight - she saw, and the seeing shook her to the very core of her being. She almost relished in the fact that her immortality was gone, even though the set of her neck was forever irrevocably altered from that headlong flight off the cliff in which she learned of her immortality.
She grows fearful;
Is too close to the Mountain’s edge and backs up hastily.
Fear tears at her throat with sharp claws and she bites back a cry of terror --
Stoney would never stop reliving that moment over and over again.
The pitch over the cliff and the rush of the air as it goes by her, almost whistling merrily in her ears until she slams into the earth and it is a hard embrace that she finds herself in, neck broken and a trickle of blood from one nostril. Then she rights herself, bones click back into place and everything works just like it should.
She jerks back from the precipice; ashamed at how the sentiment of her death stays with her.
It will haunt her for all of her days, she suspects, swallowing a sigh of self pity.
The pintaloosa climbs down the rocky slopes, careful to pick her way amongst the rocks and the pitfalls of other horses’ steps. What must they have been thinking to go up and down this Mountain? She is curious, but is not long for the curiosity as it dims in her, sparking out as she steps along the grassy way towards the beckoning Forest. Something about the trees promises her safety, solitude even. Maybe because she met her death in the Meadow, she avoids it and skirts the edge of it with nary a glance or the flick of an ear to it.
When she did bother to look up, she saw the glitter of green eyes beneath a shock of hair of muddled mulberry. It stopped her cold in her tracks; not because the green of his eyes were familiar, but because she had never seen anything like them in her short (once immortal) life.