The painted mare follows a short way behind Myrna, into this new unfamiliar land. Her eyes taking in the scenes surrounding her. She smiles as she thinks of what sort of home her and Wynters could have. Rolling hills, that must be a vibrate green in the summer months, currently tipped with the frost of winter. Although the air here hardly feels like the freezing cloud of what winters back home were like in that barren infertile land she grew up in, where hardly anything grew.
As she nudges her foal gently, the action the only things keeping the exhausted foal going. Of course Myrna had offered to stop of either of them got tired but the thought of them being somewhere relatively safe when night fell kept her urging her foal on, perhaps the wrong decision but it was done now and she couldn't change the past. Her foal would be safe to drop into the deep sleep she so desperately needed here, and maybe she herself would be able to let her guard down a little, at least enough to rest and recover some much needed energy. At least she hoped that was correct. She hadn't sensed any deceit in Myrna and so she had chosen to trust the other mare, or at least as far as one could trust a stranger.
The black and white foal was only still moving due to her mother's insistent nudging. Her head dropped so low it was a wonder she didn't fall over herself in her exhausted state. Her bleary eyes only just able to see in front of her, it's a good thing her mother was also steering her trajectory as she could have easily walk into anything in her path.
The palomino mare follows the familiar route home, choosing the ways easiest for small and tired hooves. By the time they reach the familiar rolling hills that begin to delineate the Gates from the land around it, the little foal is nearly sleepwalking.
Myrna leads the way to a shallow overhang at the base of one of those hills, carved out by some long extinct ancestor of the little stream that chatters quietly beside them. “It tends to rain overnight in winter,” she explains, gesturing to the offered shelter, “This’ll keep you dry. In the meantime, I need to go find Ravin and Luvi, who I’m sure are driving their grandparents mad by now.”
The palomino mare looks overhead at the evening sky that is quickly becoming star-spangled, then at the last fading glowing of orange on the western horizon. When she turns back to Cascadia, she offers the other mother a warm smile.
“We’re usually awake too early, and hanging out in the meadow that’s a little ways downstream.” She wants to reassure Cascadia that she doesn’t intend to lead her to a new place only to abandon her, while also giving the exhausted mare and foal time to rest, and herself time to fetch her children from any trouble they might have entangled themselves in.
Cascadia follows Myrna, before nudging her foal into the offered shelter. Now you can sleep my sweetheart she whispers just before the foal dropped like a stone, practically passed out from exhaustion. She winces as the foal drops, before dipping her head to nuzzle the sleeping filly.
Moving her attention back to the palomino mare she feels the adrenaline beginning to leave her body, replaced by exhaustion. Thank you Myrna, for everything in her mind she wants to say more, the loneliness gripping her.
Instead she merely nods before the other mare departs.
Standing over her sleeping foal she plans to sleep on her feet, which would keep her alert but halfway through the night she gives in to her exhaustion, laying down, her head resting over her child's back.
She wakes sometime early in the morning, choosing to stay as she is snuggled up with her foal, who is still asleep.
I woke before dawn as I often did, and watched the sky lighten at the edges of the dark canopy. The thick boughs of the Mother Tree block most of the sky, but they keep off most of the rain that I can hear pattering far overhead. I stretch out my left wing, the one not tucked in tight between Luvi and I, and twist my golden head around to see if she’s awake.
No, she’s still snoring, her head draped over the foreleg of a pale golden lioness whose toothsome mouth is hanging half open as she, too, slumbers.
Leaning to the left, I slowly extricate myself, and move quietly to the edge of the canopy of thick boughs, where I see that the rain has stopped and the sky lightened enough to see by, enough that I can hear the watery sounds of early birdsong through the chilly air.
I glance over my shoulder to see that Luvi is stretching but not quite awake, and I know that the pair of them will not sleep much longer, and that they’ll come after me whenever they do. I know that I should wait, that the two strangers that my mom had brought back deserve their rest, but I am too eager to wait.
Keeping my colorfully feathered wings close to my golden sides, I make my way up the bank of the spring-widened stream. It is hardly more than ankle deep, even in the wettest season, and I jump over it easily when I reach the meadow in which my family most often stays.
Rather than stop, I continue on upstream, my careful hoofsteps slowing as I draw near the shelter my mother had shown them to. It’s just around the bend, I know, but I’m not quite bold enough to take those final steps. Instead, I pace back and forth a few times, not realizing how loud I am being, and then losing my courage entirely I turn and bolt back to the meadow, where I intend to wait for someone - whether its the strangers or my sister and mother - to find me.
@ Cascadia
11-26-2024, 02:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-26-2024, 02:50 AM by Cascadia.)
Feeling her foal beginning to stir Cascadia smiled, it was the longest the two of them had managed to rest and get some sleep since Wynters was born.
She lifted her head as the foal turned to face her mother, her eyes much brighter than she had done before, the foal touch her muzzle to her mother's in greeting.
Good morning my darling, sleep well? she whispered to her foal.
The little foal nodded before tilting her head at her mother with a begging look in her eye.
What is it? she questioned, knowing the answer dispite her question.
Momma she started, elongating the word I'm hungry.
Chuckling the painted mare slowly stood, careful not to step on her foal. She yawn whilst stretching, watching as her child slowly stood, wobbling a bit, perhaps more than she should the mare thought as she reached out to help her foal gain her balance.
As the little filly move to nurse from her mother, Cascadia got lost in thought, she knew her foal should be stronger by now and not still as weak as one only hours old, she'd kept her on the move so much she had barely had a chance to allow her to sleep or feed.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by Wynters head butting her shoulder, shaking her head before glancing at the foal.
I asked if I could go run momma? the foal asked, clearly feeling more alert after a good night's sleep.
Scanning her surroundings she watched and listened, seeing nothing and hearing nothing more than the morning song of various birds that mostly drowned out the sound of the small stream nearby. She hesitated briefly fine, but you stay close, we still don't know these lands she warned the eager foal who took off trotting a few feet from her mother.
As Wynters grew bolder she started to pick up speed and drift a little further from her mother, attempting a few small awkward looking bucks, she hadn't had a chance to really stretch her legs much until now and although the foals energy would deplete quickly she was having too much fun to worry about that now.
Oblivious to anything else around her as she reaches where the meadow rolls round a bend, not seeing the new comer whilst her back was to him, but when she turns everything goes wrong.
Attempting to stop suddenly and freeze up with eyes on stalks she fails spectacularly and ends up falling over her own feet, hitting the ground as she struggles to untangle herself from her own legs, instead she gives up, just led on the floor, the sight in front of her not making much sense as it looked like a horse and a bird, she never seen anything so strange and st least for right now, so scary.
Unable to take her eyes from the strange creature all she can hear is her own heartbeat and the sound of another horse barrelling down on her, most likely her mother, coming to protect her from what ever kind of creature this was.
She wakes with a yawn, breathing deeply of the cool spring air that tastes of rainfall. A glance at the edge of the canopy reveals that the rain has stopped, and then she looks back to the two children sleeping beside her.
There’s only one, a feathered palomino filly with her head resting on her mother’s lupine foreleg.
Myrna’s shapeshifting back into her equine form disturbs the pillow of her foreleg, and Luvi is awake and eagerly following at her heels as the pale mare hurries after her son. She should have known better than to fall back asleep in the pre-dawn when she’d heard him shifting around, Myrna thinks, she’d known he’d been overeager about their visitors.
As the palomino mare makes her way up the stream, flowers bloom in her wake. They’re an effect of the crown she wears, magic that is far stronger - and therefore more noticeable - while within her homeland’s borders.
She sees her son standing alone in the meadow, and breathes a sigh of relief. Her pace slows, but Luvi’s increases as she bolts toward her twin. Luvi is as feathered as he is, and though she lacks his wings she is swathed in glowing light that shot through now and then with miniature flickering lightnings. The pair of twins (and their glowing, horned mother) are not the most fantastical of Beqanna’s creatures, but as Luvi spots the stranger on the ground a bit beyond Ravin and races toward her, they likely seem quite terrifying.
Terrifying until Luvi loses her balance, anyway, and rolls head over heels into the rain-swelled edge of the shallow creek.
Ravin, who’d been staring, silent and wide-eyed, and the unfamiliar foal as she fell, is distracted by his sibling. Laughing at her bedraggled look, he teases her as Myrna comes up behind them. The palomino mare’s face is mostly calm, but there is a telling twitch beside her right eye that her children might recognize as just barely keeping her frustration in check.
“Good morning Cascadia, Wynters. Please meet my children, Ravin and Luvi.”
@ Cascadia
Having seen her foal fall she had tried to hang back, not wanting to smother her but all that changed with the terrified look upon her child's face as she rocketed at full speed towards her child. Dammit she shouldn't had been so careless until she knew herself what kind of creatures lie within these lands.
Bringing herself to a sliding stop in front of the fallen foal, hind legs digged into the earth to bring her to a abrupt halt, body tense, ears pinned back against her skull in response to whatever threat she would fine.
Except what she saw wasn't what she had been expecting. To Wynters she may have questioned what this creature was but Cascadia was at least a little familiar with magical equines.
Allowing her body posture to relax, she dipped her head slightly as she studied the young colt, seeing similarities to his mother in him she guessed this was one of Myrna's children, something confirmed as she saw said mare walking up behind them.
Trying to remember if Myrna had told her how old her children were she watches as the filly tumbles into the stream. Yes they were definately children she thinks as she struggles to keep in a chuckle at the pairs antics.
Aware that Wynters had found her feet she spares a quick glance to her child, who seems utterly transfixed on the pair, glad to see most of that initial fear being replaced with curiosity.
Switching her attention to Myrna she returns the greeting.
Good morning Myrna. It nice to meet them she says, a touch of humor in her tone as she glances at the distracted pair, the colt still teasing his sister. A quick glance to her own foal showing Wynters taking no notice of Myrna or their conversation, watching the twins with fascination, as only one so young could, seeing everything for the very first time.
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