<div id="nev"><style type="text/css">.nev_container {background: transparent; width: 575px;border: 0px solid ; color:; font: 14px 'Times New Roman', serif; padding: 15px;text-align: justify;box-shadow: inset 2 2 2px 2px ;}.nev_name {text-align: center; color: #fff; font: 26px 'Times New Roman', serif; padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 10px;}.nev_quote {text-align: center; font-style: italic}</style><center><div class="nev_container">All she had ever wanted was her freedom.
And after she had had that, she had only wanted <I>rest.</I> Unlike some, the little red mare had achieved both of those things, both in her life and her death, but now, now something else is taking shape. This is an existence that she had not prepared herself for. The Afterlife is ever expanding and, she suspects, is governed by very different rules than those of the world she left behind. This is how she closes her eyes on a bright, snowy, landscape, and opens them again here at the side of a rampant river roaring and crashing over the precipice. Her feet carry her to the edge of the water and pause there, the current licking at the hard shell of her hooves, and Red Mare peers out. In the center stands a grulla mare she does not know, the mare splits apart from herself appearing on either side of the impossible distance.
<I>If you reach the other side, if you meet your other half, you may both go home. To Life.</I>
"But I don't <I>want</I> that..." her voice is small against the rush of water. Red Mare does not want to return to Life. It's unnatural and unnecessary, there is nothing left there for her to do. Besides, if the whispers are true, the gates are already off their hinges and she could cross them any time she wanted. There's no need to bother with this nonsense just to go live again.
Dark brown eyes find themselves flicking upward, seeking out the face that waits for her on the other side. <I>Of course...</I> It could never have been anyone else, not for the little sorrel that left Beqanna to discover the world beyond. Brown eyes meet brown eyes, red tails flicking softly in unison. The red face she recognizes only from its reflection shining back at her in still water.
It's herself, a wry smile on her lips and one ear fallen back like an eyebrow cocked, questioning.
She wonders if that Red Mare feels the same way, in her heart, knows that she had never gone looking for anyone harder than she sought herself - if she, too, prefers death. <I>There's a whole world here, why go back to the one we already explored?</I> For a moment, she thinks she sees the other chestnut nod, but she can't be sure. A deep breath in, then out. Imagination. It's something that she has sometimes lacked, it was a simple life that she wanted, a simple life that she <I>had</I>. Death, it seems, will not be so simple, it will not be darkness and rest, it is endless and stretches across many realms. Another breath, her eyes shut.
<I>Nobody</I> could cross that river.
<B>You have no body.</B>
A voice in her mind and she almost gasps aloud at it. <I>What?</I>
<B><I>You</I> have no body. You don't bruise, you don't break, and you <I>certainly</I> don't drown.</B>
Her eyes fly open and meet the gaze of that Red Mare across the water. She is nothing. Her body is lost to time and what is she? A remnant of thought and memory. She thinks she stands before what she thinks is a river. But it isn't, and she isn't. Perhaps the mouse-dun mare can't cross the river without help or magic, but <I>she</I> is flesh and blood. The chestnut has no such limitations.
"I am nothing, and <I>nothing</I> can cross the river."
Grey lips press into a firm line and Red Mare steps forward resolutely.
<div class="nev_name">Red Mare</div><div class="nev_quote">...</div></div></center>
And after she had had that, she had only wanted <I>rest.</I> Unlike some, the little red mare had achieved both of those things, both in her life and her death, but now, now something else is taking shape. This is an existence that she had not prepared herself for. The Afterlife is ever expanding and, she suspects, is governed by very different rules than those of the world she left behind. This is how she closes her eyes on a bright, snowy, landscape, and opens them again here at the side of a rampant river roaring and crashing over the precipice. Her feet carry her to the edge of the water and pause there, the current licking at the hard shell of her hooves, and Red Mare peers out. In the center stands a grulla mare she does not know, the mare splits apart from herself appearing on either side of the impossible distance.
<I>If you reach the other side, if you meet your other half, you may both go home. To Life.</I>
"But I don't <I>want</I> that..." her voice is small against the rush of water. Red Mare does not want to return to Life. It's unnatural and unnecessary, there is nothing left there for her to do. Besides, if the whispers are true, the gates are already off their hinges and she could cross them any time she wanted. There's no need to bother with this nonsense just to go live again.
Dark brown eyes find themselves flicking upward, seeking out the face that waits for her on the other side. <I>Of course...</I> It could never have been anyone else, not for the little sorrel that left Beqanna to discover the world beyond. Brown eyes meet brown eyes, red tails flicking softly in unison. The red face she recognizes only from its reflection shining back at her in still water.
It's herself, a wry smile on her lips and one ear fallen back like an eyebrow cocked, questioning.
She wonders if that Red Mare feels the same way, in her heart, knows that she had never gone looking for anyone harder than she sought herself - if she, too, prefers death. <I>There's a whole world here, why go back to the one we already explored?</I> For a moment, she thinks she sees the other chestnut nod, but she can't be sure. A deep breath in, then out. Imagination. It's something that she has sometimes lacked, it was a simple life that she wanted, a simple life that she <I>had</I>. Death, it seems, will not be so simple, it will not be darkness and rest, it is endless and stretches across many realms. Another breath, her eyes shut.
<I>Nobody</I> could cross that river.
<B>You have no body.</B>
A voice in her mind and she almost gasps aloud at it. <I>What?</I>
<B><I>You</I> have no body. You don't bruise, you don't break, and you <I>certainly</I> don't drown.</B>
Her eyes fly open and meet the gaze of that Red Mare across the water. She is nothing. Her body is lost to time and what is she? A remnant of thought and memory. She thinks she stands before what she thinks is a river. But it isn't, and she isn't. Perhaps the mouse-dun mare can't cross the river without help or magic, but <I>she</I> is flesh and blood. The chestnut has no such limitations.
"I am nothing, and <I>nothing</I> can cross the river."
Grey lips press into a firm line and Red Mare steps forward resolutely.
<div class="nev_name">Red Mare</div><div class="nev_quote">...</div></div></center>