She had not meant to wander far.
She had only meant to test her legs.
Born early, before the snow had melted (and perhaps because her mother’s womb could not longer steel itself against how brightly she burned), the legs had been thin and wobbly. Her mother had tried to steady her, to help, but her nose had come away singed and the child had to learn on her own.
She had started with two or three shaky steps, the snow melting around her when she collapsed in it. But she was a fierce, determined thing and had finally graduated to being able to race across that great swath of meadow.
She had not meant to wander far.
But she had learned to hop and to skip and the unfettered joy that blossomed in her baby ribcage was intoxicating. So, she leapt and she shrieked and she lost sight of her mother. But she caught sight of something else. The eyes – pinprick stars in a sea of constellations themselves – alighted on a bird. But it was no ordinary bird! No, this bird had leaves and petals and they drew a soft gasp of wonder out of her as she scurried after it.
She saw the two of them – the white mare and the buckskin stallion – but did not register their presence. She leapt, hoping to touch the bird. There were several others, but she had her sights set on the one that had initially caught her eye. And when she leapt, the bird (small and practically weightless) slid into the pull of her gravity, and she skimmed her nose along its flowered wing. The bird faltered then, the wing catching fire, and then plummeted to the freshly-thawed ground below.
“Oh no!” she cried, the eyes wide and doleful. “I killed it,” she mumbled, her glow dimming with her sorrow. “I didn’t mean to,” she added, staring down at it.