04-26-2019, 11:24 AM
She dreams of adventure, of being an explorer like daddy, of discovering places bigger and better and brighter than the caves she lives in with mommy. So when she stirs from her slumber to the gentle resonation of Leliana’s hooves against the dirt and stone floor, she is quick to blink the sleep from her eyes and climb up on those long, willowy legs. But she waits until the echo is gone, until she is sure mama won’t hear her scrambling footsteps following after her and come put her back to bed - waits almost too long, and her eyelids get heavy again, her ears sagging softly to either side. But when her head droops low and her body sways to follow, she lurches awake again with a gasp, rolling her shoulders into a full body shake that ends with the waggling thump of her little scrub-brush tail.
Yawning, she peers off into the half-dark of the route mama took, wondering where it is she’s going and why she didn’t bring Linnea with her. She doesn’t need that much sleep, she’s already a few months old! That’s practically grown up.
She flaps her tail again, leaning forward to stretch her little body, and then sets off down the buried stone aisleway after her mother. She cannot remember a time where this dark ever bothered her, where the caves and the tunnels linking them ever felt too small or confining. There were so many places where the caves opened to reveal hidden water, or hard, sparkling stars buried in and among the flat rock. But now, as the sound of Leliana’s footsteps fade and mix with the sound of Linnea’s soft breaths and the padding of soft foal feet, she feels a flare of something she would later come to know as envy. It is still gentle though, still sweet, still the innocent indignance of being left behind on an adventure -
and perhaps, a very secret, very dark and deep rooted fear that maybe someday mama will leave to go on an adventure without her like daddy did.
But as the path beneath her feet smooths out with so much wear of hooves and weather and the rivulets of rain that tend to gather and race along the gentle hollows, she is startled to find that mama hasn’t gone far at all. She is standing a short ways outside their cave, all dark and dapples with splashes of red, always so beautiful. Linnea has never noticed the way her mothers wings sag with the weight of such sorrow, or the way her bones try to stand free of her skin. She has never seen her mother in any other way, as anything more or less.
She noses forward all wide green eyes and her dark head tilted curiously to the side, having forgotten to be sheepish for leaving the cave while her mother thought her to be napping. There is someone with her mother though, someone large and pale, a contrast all tangled with the earthy mahogany of her mama. She is wordless as she steps around Leliana’s hindquarters, puzzled and with her brow furrowed beneath her forelock as, suddenly, a face the color of storm clouds is revealed to her. She pauses, focused only on that face as she leans against mama’s back legs and tries to understand who he is and why she holds him in this way.
Mama has told her stories of daddy. Of a strong, handsome man the color of storm, of stone. Of the scales in wide patches over his skin in places that break up the soft dapples like ripples of rain in the puddles of their caves. Off on an adventure, but he’ll be back when he can, because he is a good man, because he loves them. But she isn’t thinking of these things as she shyly creeps forward with her nose trailing along moms belly, as she lifts her face and rubs it against that bay, dappled shoulder and waits to be noticed. “Momma I’m not asleep anymore.” She whispers, nudges her, because it can’t possibly count as interrupting if she says it all soft and polite, right?
Yawning, she peers off into the half-dark of the route mama took, wondering where it is she’s going and why she didn’t bring Linnea with her. She doesn’t need that much sleep, she’s already a few months old! That’s practically grown up.
She flaps her tail again, leaning forward to stretch her little body, and then sets off down the buried stone aisleway after her mother. She cannot remember a time where this dark ever bothered her, where the caves and the tunnels linking them ever felt too small or confining. There were so many places where the caves opened to reveal hidden water, or hard, sparkling stars buried in and among the flat rock. But now, as the sound of Leliana’s footsteps fade and mix with the sound of Linnea’s soft breaths and the padding of soft foal feet, she feels a flare of something she would later come to know as envy. It is still gentle though, still sweet, still the innocent indignance of being left behind on an adventure -
and perhaps, a very secret, very dark and deep rooted fear that maybe someday mama will leave to go on an adventure without her like daddy did.
But as the path beneath her feet smooths out with so much wear of hooves and weather and the rivulets of rain that tend to gather and race along the gentle hollows, she is startled to find that mama hasn’t gone far at all. She is standing a short ways outside their cave, all dark and dapples with splashes of red, always so beautiful. Linnea has never noticed the way her mothers wings sag with the weight of such sorrow, or the way her bones try to stand free of her skin. She has never seen her mother in any other way, as anything more or less.
She noses forward all wide green eyes and her dark head tilted curiously to the side, having forgotten to be sheepish for leaving the cave while her mother thought her to be napping. There is someone with her mother though, someone large and pale, a contrast all tangled with the earthy mahogany of her mama. She is wordless as she steps around Leliana’s hindquarters, puzzled and with her brow furrowed beneath her forelock as, suddenly, a face the color of storm clouds is revealed to her. She pauses, focused only on that face as she leans against mama’s back legs and tries to understand who he is and why she holds him in this way.
Mama has told her stories of daddy. Of a strong, handsome man the color of storm, of stone. Of the scales in wide patches over his skin in places that break up the soft dapples like ripples of rain in the puddles of their caves. Off on an adventure, but he’ll be back when he can, because he is a good man, because he loves them. But she isn’t thinking of these things as she shyly creeps forward with her nose trailing along moms belly, as she lifts her face and rubs it against that bay, dappled shoulder and waits to be noticed. “Momma I’m not asleep anymore.” She whispers, nudges her, because it can’t possibly count as interrupting if she says it all soft and polite, right?