She lingered in the common lands. Exposing herself to danger, yes, but also to experiences that life has so far been lacking. Tephra had been home all her life, and she'd so rarely wanted anything the jungle kingdom could not provide. Not until the sun had gone out and with it her tranquillity.
A childhood of play and exploration had refined her into a happy young mare, with a predilection for perfection. A place for everything and everything in its place, that was how she liked it. Maybe that was why the sun going out had so completely disturbed her. It was the greatest, most basic violation of expectation. It felt like a personal insult, when everything else was falling apart.
So she lingered, sometimes alone, sometimes with her twin beside her. Today, she was solitary, and grateful for it. There was a perverse beauty in the darkness. A sort of permission for the ugly and the hurtful to exist where no one could see it or condemn it. The monsters were, of course, the greatest example of this. But so were the others who walked the light deprived lands. When predictability was denied, what was left but survival?
She was lean and wirey now, scraped down from the inside out of all that was unnecessary for existence. The lush grasses of her childhood memories were long gone, withered and dry underhoof. She made do with prickly, stubborn brush and tough treebark. Sour tasting water and questionable (but plentiful) fungi. Her family would give help if she asked for it. She wouldn't though. Not when there was so much to be learned out in the shadows.
When a noise came out from not far off enough, her head rose to look. An old instinct, one she couldn't shake. There was far more to be gleaned with ears and nose than the eyes could hope to offer anymore. Wings held half-unfolded, her ears swirled, searching for the sound to make itself known again. Monster, equine, some mundane but still hungry woodland creature; any of these were possible. Until the cautious rhythm of hooves on loam came again, and she relaxed minutely.
Hunger came in many forms, and none were safe for a mare all alone. "Who's there," her voice carried sharply across the space between them, for all the world sounding as confident as she wished she felt.
@[gravitas]
@[The Monsters] please mess with Laia's fall color changing!
A childhood of play and exploration had refined her into a happy young mare, with a predilection for perfection. A place for everything and everything in its place, that was how she liked it. Maybe that was why the sun going out had so completely disturbed her. It was the greatest, most basic violation of expectation. It felt like a personal insult, when everything else was falling apart.
So she lingered, sometimes alone, sometimes with her twin beside her. Today, she was solitary, and grateful for it. There was a perverse beauty in the darkness. A sort of permission for the ugly and the hurtful to exist where no one could see it or condemn it. The monsters were, of course, the greatest example of this. But so were the others who walked the light deprived lands. When predictability was denied, what was left but survival?
She was lean and wirey now, scraped down from the inside out of all that was unnecessary for existence. The lush grasses of her childhood memories were long gone, withered and dry underhoof. She made do with prickly, stubborn brush and tough treebark. Sour tasting water and questionable (but plentiful) fungi. Her family would give help if she asked for it. She wouldn't though. Not when there was so much to be learned out in the shadows.
When a noise came out from not far off enough, her head rose to look. An old instinct, one she couldn't shake. There was far more to be gleaned with ears and nose than the eyes could hope to offer anymore. Wings held half-unfolded, her ears swirled, searching for the sound to make itself known again. Monster, equine, some mundane but still hungry woodland creature; any of these were possible. Until the cautious rhythm of hooves on loam came again, and she relaxed minutely.
Hunger came in many forms, and none were safe for a mare all alone. "Who's there," her voice carried sharply across the space between them, for all the world sounding as confident as she wished she felt.
@[gravitas]
@[The Monsters] please mess with Laia's fall color changing!