"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
09-30-2018, 09:16 PM (This post was last modified: 09-30-2018, 09:19 PM by Vic.)
The brisk wind blows through the winter coat that Umani is beginning to finally shed off. The sun’s rays bean over the river, where Umani is standing. She is taking a drink and sees her reflection and shivers a little.
Suddenly, there’s cracking of twigs behind her. She twitches her ears and jumps around, almost falling into the river. Her hind left hoof gets caught in mud and she slips. She huffs as she gets her hoof unstuck. She sees a shadow come closer as she sniffs the air- waiting to see who the approaching horse is.
Finally, feeling the anxiety in her body lessen, after she slipped, she walks a few paces off the river’s edge and awaits to see who comes around the shadowy bend.
You’d think, being raised in the afterlife among dead things, she’d be morbid.
Salt isn’t, though, not really. She’s quick to laugh, and she has no idolizations of death (but then, she doesn’t see it as an endpoint, only a different realm, and she is already so comfortable being close to dead).
She isn’t paying attention to where she’s headed, so she’s almost surprised when the twigs snap beneath her hooves. She laughs, a little embarrassed, and looks to see a mare, pale gold near the river. She smiles, quiet, dips her head in a brief greeting. She’s friendly enough, despite her moribund upbringing, and she’s wanted for company, lately.
“Sorry to frighten you,” she says, then, “my name is Salt. Who are you?”
09-30-2018, 10:01 PM (This post was last modified: 09-30-2018, 10:22 PM by Vic.)
“Hi there. I’m Umani,” she says, shaking out her hind leg from the mud that is plastered on it. “How are you?” She asks, noticing Salt’s grayish shine to her. “It’s alright. I startle easy as well, I’m just glad I didn’t completely fall into the river. The current seems strong today,” she chuckles, shaking her long, flaxen mane out.
She’s lived in the corporeal world longer now, and it is no longer her instinct to shift to her ghostly form. It was, for a long time – she found comfort in the transparency – but now she is comfortable in this form, her black coat turning to gray with age.
She laughs, too, at the girl’s comment. The river’s current seems strong enough, and Salt has never swum much.
“Hi, Umani,” she says, trying out the girl’s name – it’s different, more complex than her own.
“Are you from here?” she asks, curious, as she always is, about their stories – all so different from her own.
"I'm not from here. I'm just a wanderer trying to find a place to call home," she says, smiling softly before chuckling again from her previous comment. She steps away from the edge of the river, getting a flashback of her friend who drowned when they were both foals. If it weren't for her friend, she would be dead right now.
She gazes into space, stuck in her own mind when Salt tries to get her out of her daze.
