this reckless wandering love was never ours; any

[Kindling]

She is, to say the least, disappointed.

Can no one just be a fucking horse anymore? Her bitterness lingers like the smoke after a drag from a cigarette hovering on your gums and tongue. It had been quite interesting to walk around Beqanna and realize nothing was what it used to be. How is she supposed to take over when the horses have suddenly inhaled a shit-ton of enhancement substances. How else have they grown so magnificently?

I have not been dead that long.

Wings are like assholes now, everyone has them, her unfiltered thoughts continue keeping her company while she weaves through fallen trees and dead branches. She is a pale old queen, died and re-woken by her own hatred to how she left.

No one remembered her because she didn’t leave a memorable nightmare. Kindling vanished at the most ungodly time, after her rein of terror and before she became a name again. She had the most opportunistic time to leave a taste on everyone’s mouths for years to come, and she let her flame burn out faster than a match in a black out.
She would learn this time. She has learned. Pull your grenade at the top of the mountain to cause an avalanche, not at the bottom hidden amongst the pine trees and fallen boulders.

It is through her deepened plot-like thoughts that the magnetic colour of cream and orange violently disrupts the otherwise gray-scale landscape before her, only yards ahead. She is at first hesitant, not fearful, but aware. See, our little deer has no fear anymore. Once you no longer fear death, you do not have much left to be fearful of.

However, how pitiful to come back from the dead only to be slaughtered by an over-sized kitten.

Black charcoal branches reach out to poke her as she quietly follows the predator on track. The tiger has since left her sight, but the fresh paw prints double the size of Kindling’s own left enough of a trail to wander along. Her ears are pointed forward, her head drawn down as she slowly trots the path to death.

Now, if she killed a tiger that had been prowling Beqanna’s forest for quite sometime, that would be quite the heroic effort on her part. What an easy way to find trust in the hearts of those who haven’t yet learned her. A shortcut to loyalty.

They would all eventually burn in hell. Kindling knows, she has seen it.

When will our bird ever learn there is no shortcuts in loyalty?

She stops, observing what she has stumbled upon now… What the fuck has happened in my absence. The stinging scent of blood nips at her nostrils, a perfume she had longed to wear. Above the carcass, a midnight coat with vibrant blue striping her face.

And this electric mare is not alone.

The smell of death is harsher found than the smell of blood, and he is a cursed concoction of it all. To most equines, he would be the epitome of nightmares. A devil risen again, but Kindling knows better. They all look like that, broken and beaten and a little torn up. She is no different, though clearly rising did her more justice than him. She isn’t nearly as dead appearing, though her eyes are a tad faded and her scars aren’t hidden from prying eyes. Beaten and battered surely, but in comparison to him she looks more alive than he has in decades.

“A few washes, the smell should come out” she walks from the shadowy darkness, her ghost-like coat illuminating in the soft light cast by the moon.

“My, my, what a beautiful girl. You are quite impressive, kitten,” She looks back to the midnight female, her envy for shifting still nagging at the back of her mind. “Yes, please tell us your name. Do you suit it?”

She looks back to the dead man walking, “quite the name you have. Ancient scripture inspired, I presume?”

“How rude of me,” a small laugh escapes her lips before adding, “Kindling, by the way.”