in the moon of the killing flowers; any

[keeper]

It is Spring -

She awakens - -

Bear - mare; it makes no difference.

No cub or foal has she carried through winter’s hibernation in many moons. 

She is old; grizzled and graying. 

Ought to be no more than bones on a mountainside in a cavern. 

But she’s not.

And everything looks so green, so new. It even smells so good… there is a faint shimmer of grizzly over the mare as if the transformation is about to take place but then her shape settles and smooths itself out - four hooves, mane and tail, and nostrils that suck greedily at the air.

(She’ll honey-hunt and salmon-fish later! Favorite pastimes as the grizzly bear smacks its jaws together inside her, sharing her halved soul.)

What gives her pause is the lack of scent that tells of kith and kin - -

Their names a litany of prayer she refuses to utter, as if by sheer willpower and love alone, she can keep them tethered to the here and now, and not in remembrance as those that have gone before.

(Balto. Ryan. Tickaani. Clayton. Fiadh. Thistly.)

Lovers. Sister. Children. 

Their names found her in the blush of morning light that stole across the land. Such power in them is enough to almost trip the more into her ursine form to escape the flood of faces and names and love that surged into her heart and mind. A tide of remembrance like that is the inescapable killing kind that slays what is left of soul and self.

Keeper, like she always has, perseveres.

Head tipped to the dawn in almost childish wonder, as if not having seen one through these eyes in quite some time.

(She always looked through the piggish squint of the bear — )

It is beautiful and she admires it alone amidst the chirp of birds populating the morning.

(If this was animation, she’d almost bear a strong resemblance to a famous cartoon equine of feral nature with mane and tail streaming behind in the wind in a proud stance.) 

But it’s just Keeper, come again and already dreaming of berry-picking in her bear-form. 

[Miko]

The world of Beqanna - where a horse is never just a horse. She has been tiptoeing (fluttering?) through these lands long enough to know it. She doesn’t pay it all much attention, mind, but it’s hard not to notice - the horns, the tails, bird-wings and bright colours and hedge-clipping horses, horses with stripes, red eyes, all bones or no bones, from the deep or from above - and that is just what can be seen. Sometimes the biggest differences are what aren’t immediately noticed, though.

And they come together, like fire-sparks, bounce off each other and fizzle out (or burn brighter), and it’s interesting. Probably more interesting for them, not so interesting for Miko, who has watched and waited and watched some more - nothing else to do, you see, and she can’t see the sense in bumping into a stranger to exchange a cryptic and pseudo-deep conversation

- You’re thinking about something else, aren’t you, something far away and something that isn’t just standing knee-deep in grass with the wind swishing through your mane like a super hero

- Yes, but you wouldn’t understand, you are just a stupid moth

- Indeed, I am a stupid moth, but what are you?

- That’s rude, and what’s a super hero anyway?

She has had dozens of such exchanges with herself. Sometimes she thinks - is there something wrong with me, to think myself so above such things? And today she has reached the conclusion that yes - there is something wrong with her, and seeking connection and others isn’t always such a terrible thing, and maybe if she tried to make a friend, she wouldn’t be flitting around, batting her wings against her ribs to feel something.

A beautiful, stupid idiot.

The other mare looks like she is somewhere else, even with her hooves rooted firmly in the same ground as Miko. Majestic, really. Miko is curious (nosy?) and approaches slowly, with her head low and swinging, the picture of calm water - even if beneath the surface she is all flapping duck feet.

“I’m Miko,” she offers the dunskin. A pitiful offering. “What are you thinking about? Because you smell like dank caves and I don’t think you’re all here.”